Where the Heart Is
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: Wolverine and Jubilee try to get together if they can overcome the obstacles in their way. FINISHED. Read sequel, 'No Greater Love', then read the last book, 'Love Lights Your Way'. Won 3rd place in 2003 XDay fanfic competition. Read, review please! Thank
1. Default Chapter

Chapter 1

The buzzer rang.

Xavier started at the sound. It was early in the morning at the mansion, and breakfast had just ended. That particular sound meant that someone with an old set of the mansion's gate codes had arrived at the gates, punched in the code, and not been admitted. Very few people had the codes that would open the gates, let alone an old code. An old code meant that the person trying to gain entry was or had been, at one time, an ally or friend of theirs. Since Xavier made sure that each time he changed the codes he made sure that everyone who needed to know them got the new version, this person had obviously not been here for some time. He couldn't imagine who that might be. He hit the switch on the flat panel set into his desk. "Xavier residence," he said. "Identify yourself, please."

"Hey, Professor! Didn't know you changed the codes!" came a cheerful, definitely feminine voice. Xavier switched on the monitor.

There was a young woman standing at the gates. She was dressed in a conservative yet subtly attractive navy blue skirt suit, had thick black hair that fell in waves down to the middle of her back, and wore dark sunglasses against the glare of the early morning June sun. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but he couldn't place her. He reached out with a tentative mental tendril and touched the young woman's mind.

Jubilee!

He stared at the screen in shock for a moment. She was so different!

He chided himself. She wasn't thirteen any longer, she was twenty-four, and a rising star in the field of Applied Physics. Upon her graduation form the Massachusetts Academy, she had surprised everyone by insisting on pursuing a degree in college. He had whole-heartedly supported her interest, and had been gratified when she earned her degree a year earlier than the others who had entered college at the same time. Once out, she'd quickly earned recognition for her approach to atomic physics. She had launched herself on a tour of universities around the world, attending scientific summits with members of other scientific communities around the world. Xavier had followed, with pride, her accomplishments and dissertations as she traveled. He'd read just the previous day that she'd be in a summit in Vienna. What was she now doing here?

Outside the gates, Jubilee pulled off the sunglasses and squinted at the camera hanging over the brick post of the gate. "Hey, Professor?" she said. "It's me, Jubilee! Have I changed that much?"

Xavier found his mental voice. **You have indeed,** he said. **I didn't recognize you for a moment! Come in!** And the gate swung wide.

Jubilee hopped back in the cab she'd taken from the airport and directed the driver to approach the front door via the drive. As the yellow cab pulled up, the front door flew open and she saw Storm and Jean standing there. "Hey!" she waved cheerfully.

Both women nearly flew down the steps, flung their arms around her, and kissed her cheek. Jean finally stepped back and held her at arm's length. "Jubilee. You've certainly grown since we last saw you," she marveled. "Where have you been? Why did you call a cab? Why didn't you call us? We would have picked you up!"

Jubilee hugged Storm as she answered the torrent of questions. "I was in Vienna attending the Atomic Energy Summit. I was planning on going to Milan from there, but I got an offer from Professor Cohen on the Columbia University Applied Physics staff to speak at the graduation. I couldn't turn it down, since it meant I could come home. So I caught the red-eye from Vienna last night and arrived at the airport this morning around six. I didn't want to call here and wake everybody, so I just hopped into a cab, took my lecture notes to the college, and then came here from there."

"Regardless of how you got here, it is good to see you back," Storm said, hugging her again. "How long can you stay?"

"As long as I want," Jubilee said, shrugging out of her suit jacket and opening the trunk of the cab. She dragged out an overnight case and set it down on the ground, folding the jacket neatly and putting it in the case. "I just have the speech to give later this afternoon to the graduating class, then I'm free! I've been homesick for a while, but I'd been so busy on my lecture tour that I didn't really pay attention to it. Then I saw Professor Cohen and it all came back to me. I decided it was time to come home." She looked up at the front of the sprawling mansion, and her eyes looked misty. "I really didn't realize how I missed this place," she said softly, more to herself than to the two women.

The cabbie cleared his throat. "Uh, Ma'am?" he said, setting her last bag on the pavement of the front drive. 

Jubilee snapped out of her reverie. "Oh, yes. How much do I owe you?" she said. As she settled things with the cab driver, Storm took one of Jubilee's bags and Jean took the other two, balancing them on air telekinetically, freeing up her hands to carry Jubilee's relatively light overnight case. When Jubilee turned around, she found all she had to carry was her purse.

"Charles didn't tell anyone else you were here," Jean said as they went in the front door and up the winding front stairs to the second floor. "It's going to be a surprise to everyone."

Jubilee grinned, and led the way up to her old room. When she opened it, she saw, to her surprise, that everything was the exact way she'd left it. Posters of rock band members decorated the walls. Her boombox still sat on the dresser where she'd left it when she left, though it was now a bit dustier than she remembered. The bed was still neatly made with the same loud fluorescent pink bedspread she'd liked as a teenager.

She looked around, slightly amused and appalled at the same time. At twenty-four, now, the things she'd liked and preferred at fourteen seemed juvenile and a little silly. Jean and Storm put her bags down on her bed as she giggled. "God, I had some awful taste," she said, reaching up to pull a poster of some long-forgotten boy band off the wall. "Look at this!" she went around, looking at all the posters, pulling most of them down. She reached up to pull the last one down, and then reconsidered. "No, think I'll leave that one up. He's cute." Jean giggled, and Storm looked amused. Some things really never changed.

Jubilee opened her bag. "Jean, look, I got this for you. It's real Chinese silk, from when I was at the Chang-An Institute doing a series of lectures. I saw that in a shop window, and I thought you'd like it. It matches your eyes." She dug further into her bag. "This is for you," she said as she handed a shawl to Storm. It was made of patches of varying shades of earthy brown and clear amber, and Storm was plainly delighted. "I got gifts for everybody," she said. "Where is…oh, no, oh dear, I have to hurry if I want to make the graduation," she mumbled after a quick glance at her watch. "I'll have to wait till later. I've got just enough time to unpack." And she hurriedly opened her dressers and began to toss things out, replacing them with the contents of her bags.

"Ick…" she murmured to herself, tossing a bright pink shirt out of a drawer. "How could I have ever worn this… or this…ugh, this is awful… yuck…Storm," she said suddenly, turning to face the woman, "These are obnoxious. Why didn't anyone ever tell me they were awful?"

"You would not have listened," Storm said. "And part of growing up is to find your own sense of style. If we had told you what to wear, you would never have been able to find yours."

"Still," Jubilee sniffed in distaste as she held up a brightly tie-dyed shirt, "Yuck!"

She gathered all the clothes she'd just tossed out of the drawers and packed them into a plastic bag. "I'll drop these off at the thrift store downtown when I go," she declared. "Right now I'd better shower and change." She plucked a white lacy blouse from her drawer, then chose a jade-green suit jacket and matching skirt to complete the outfit, and hurried from the room.

Jean and Storm were about to leave when she poked her head back in the door. "Don't tell anyone I'm here," she said, her summer-sky blue eyes sparkling mischievously. "I'll be back from the speech around three, and I want to surprise everyone. Especially," and Jean felt a surge of excitement and anticipation from her, "Wolvie."

Storm laughed quietly as the bathroom door closed behind the girl. "He was always the first person she looked for when she came to visit. Some things never change, Jean."

Jean's eyes were warm as she folded the delicate green silk scarf in her lap. "No, they really never do," she said, chuckling a little.

** * Jubilee hid a yawn behind her hand as the Dean of the university droned on. Although it was only June, the weather was unseasonably warm, and she could see some of the students drowsing under the midafternoon heat. She was getting a little sticky herself under the linen of her jacket. Lifting a finger, she stirred the atoms of the air around her and got them moving, which provided a welcome breeze that cooled her off a bit. She thought of her friends at the mansion longingly, wondering what they were doing to beat the ninety-five degree heat. Probably in the pool, or boating on the lake. She wished she were there, instead of here. With difficulty, she forced her wandering attention back to the Dean.

"And as you all know, our tradition has always been to invite a guest speaker to speak at graduations. This year, we were lucky enough to be able to engage, as our special guest speaker, Dr. Jubilation Lee, the author of that brilliant paper you were all supposed to read for your exams on subatomic particle theory. Please come on up, Dr. Lee."

Jubilee rose and ascended the platform gracefully, feeling what seemed like a thousand eyes on her. At one time, she would have gotten tongue-tied and self conscious, but time and maturity had taken that awkwardness away. What the graduating class saw was a graceful, self-possessed young woman who happened to be the new expert in their chosen field.

"Thank you, Dean Miller," she said quietly, acknowledging the older man's courteous bow with a charming smile. Funny how, when she was first introduced to people, they saw the Asian cast to her features and automatically bowed. She suppressed the urge to shout, _I'm an American, dude!_ and instead went to her place behind the podium. "Thank you for that wonderful introduction, Dean Miller," she said, the microphone picking up and amplifying her voice. She turned, looked at the students sitting in the chairs in front of her, no doubt dying from the heat under their dark graduation robes. She wished she dared to generate that breeze here, large enough to cool them as well, but she couldn't do that without creating an unnecessary spectacle. And she wasn't sure how they'd react to finding out she was a mutant; Dean Miller was one of those who didn't like mutantkind. So she ignored their discomfort as best she could, and turned to her notes.

She had prepared a speech all about the challenges they faced entering the field, all about how they would be an asset to the college, and impart some her own experiences upon her graduation. Another quick look at the students sweltering under the stifling heat, and she tossed the speech out the window. She'd make this short and quick, then they could all get on with their day. "I guess you're expecting a long speech about the rigors of becoming someone in your field," she said. "Well, for those who might be disappointed, feel free to see me after the ceremonies are over and I'll give you the long version." A ripple of laughter went through the audience, and the students sat up straighter. "For now, though, before you all spontaneously combust from the internal temperatures under your robes, I'll give you the quick version. 

"You've all come a long way from the time four years ago when you entered the Columbia University campus. It's been a long hard road, and I'm sure you think that's all behind you now. Speaking from experience, though, the hard part's just beginning. Now you have to apply what you know to the world in front of you. There will be setbacks, there will be hardships. A lot of the ideas you have may never bear fruit; some of you might be tempted to quit.

"Let me tell you something; this isn't for quitters. The field of Physics, whether you're seeking a position in theoretical physics or applied physics, is an extremely competitive and challenging one. But if you are determined, and you stick with it and persevere, you will eventually get to where you want to go. 

"So, keeping that in mind, I also want to tell you something else. Play. All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy, as I'm sure you've all heard at some point or another in your lives. Take some time out to stop and enjoy life; it's too short for you to be able to spend all your time in the lab. Some of you are going to go off to positions in various companies and research centers in the fall. I'll probably meet many of you later in the field. But until you all go your respective ways, enjoy your graduation, enjoy your summer, and welcome to the rest of your life!"

The applause as she stepped down was thunderous, and heartfelt, though Jubilee rather suspected that part of the reason was the brevity of the speech rather than its content. She took her seat in the front row with the rest of the college's faculty and watched the rest of the graduation ceremonies, applauding politely at the proper times while all the time wishing she could leave. She could make an excuse of a prior engagement, but that would hardly be fair to Professor Cohen. So she got up and mingled with the crowd as the students went off to greet their families, then headed off to the refreshment table to pick herself up a glass of champagne. She was sipping it, and leaning against the table, when there was a soft voice at her elbow. "Excuse me, Dr. Lee?"

She turned, to see a boy standing at her elbow, holding out his hand. One of the recent graduates, she surmised, and took his hand in a strong grip. "Yes, what can I do for you?" she asked briskly, smiling at his wide-eyed expression.

"Uh, I, uh…" she looked down at his other hand as he fiddled nervously with something, and she saw his graduation program in his hand, along with a pen. "Um, I was wondering…um, could you…" and he stopped, blushing to the roots of his sandy blond hair.

"Come on, young man, I won't bite," she said kindly, resisting the urge to ruffle his hair. He seemed so young, so unsure of himself, though from the way he looked, he couldn't have been more than a couple of years younger than herself.

"Oh, for gosh sakes, Frank," said another boy, shouldering past the first boy. "Look, all she can say is no. Dr. Lee, we were wondering if you would sign our programs for us. It's not every day we get to meet such a distinguished professor as yourself."

The flattery was a little too obvious, and she had to cover her embarrassment and dislike of the other boy. He was too arrogant, too sure of himself. She reflected that he really should drop the king of the world attitude before he took a job anywhere, or he was in for a huge reality check. She reached for Frank's paper and pen first, smiling gently at the flustered young man. "Your name is Frank?" she said gently.

"Yes," stammered the first boy. She wrote in his program, _All my best for a bright future, Frank!_ and signed it, _Dr. Jubilation Lee._ The other boy shoved his program at her and she took it, signed it briefly, _Best wishes, Dr. Lee_ and handed it back. The two boys promptly disappeared into the crowd and she watched them go, shaking her head bemusedly as she picked up her champagne glass.

"You didn't like him either?" came a dry, amused voice at her elbow, and she turned, surprised, to see Professor Matthew Cohen.

"Who? The boys?" she said, trying to spot their backs.

"Frank is all right. Needs some work on his self-esteem, but he's a nice boy, and bright. He'll do well." Cohen took a sip from his own glass, coming up to stand beside her. "His companion was Bruce Garrett. Arrogant boy; needs to be put down a peg or two. His father's Patrick Garrett, the Wall Street broker. Rich, spoiled, and arrogant. Intelligent, but spoiled. He needs an attitude fix."

"Who, Bruce?" said a pretty woman, coming up on Cohen's other side and linking her arm in his. "Yeah, he's spoiled, and that gets in the way of his intelligence. Hello, Dr. Lee," she said, holding a hand out to Jubilee and peering at her over silver wire-rimmed glasses. "I'm Dr. Claudia LeBlanc, Matthew's fiancee. I teach Literature here at the college."

Jubilee took her hand and shook it warmly. "Congratulations, Matt! I didn't know you were engaged."

"It's a recent event," Matt said, draping one arm over Claudia's shoulder. "We're planning a wedding in the fall. We've just bought a lovely vacation house upstate, near Buffalo, and we're going to have our wedding there. We'd be honored if you'd join us, Dr. Lee."

Jubilee was flabbergasted. "I'm terribly flattered, Matthew! Are you sure you want to mix business with pleasure, though?"

He smiled warmly and patted her shoulder. "Jubilation, you are more than business," he said. 'I've followed your work with great interest since you published your first paper. I felt as if I knew you even before I met you the first time, at that conference in Helsinki."

"He's talked so much about your work, I feel as if I know you too," Claudia said. "Really, we'd be pleased if you came. And you're welcome to bring a date with you, if you'd like"

Jubilee blushed, and Matt chuckled. "Come, Dr. Lee, don't tell me, after what you said earlier about the necessity of play, that you don't have some nice young man waiting for you somewhere. Surely you have someone you think about waiting for you at home."

Jubilee blushed. Sure there was someone; the same someone she'd always looked forward to coming home to since her days at the Massachusetts Academy. Wolverine had always been on her mind, someone she'd always looked forward to seeing on her infrequent visits back to the mansion. Lately, those thoughts had become a bit warmer and more personal, but there was no way she'd ever tell anyone. 

Matt saw the blush that colored her cheeks. "Ah, so there is! Come, Jubilation, we're all human. We all need someone to love. Feel free to bring him with you, if you'd like; I'd love to meet him. Now, if you'll excuse me, I see someone over there I need to speak to. Please give Claudia your address, so we can send you an invitation." And he walked off across the crowded room, leaving Claudia with Jubilee. 

Jubilee looked around, noted the crowd was thinning. She could leave now. She scrabbled around in her purse and found a pen and a piece of paper, scribbled the mansion's address on it, and gave it to Claudia. The woman took it, thanked her, and after a few more pleasantries she moved off through the crowd to find Matthew. Jubilee left her empty glass sitting on the edge of a table, and took the keys to Jean's Miata out of her purse. Jean had offered her the use of the little blue car to her for the afternoon. Jubilee appreciated the gesture.

She drove back to the mansion as fast as she dared, thinking of the special gift she'd bought Wolverine. He would like it, she was sure. She'd bought him a matched set of saddlebags for his bike in Italy, the leather butter-soft and perfectly made. She'd caressed those bags a few times as she carried them with her from place to place, thinking of him. She couldn't wait to see him again.

What would he think of her now, all grown up? She knew how she felt; she wanted him. At first she'd thought of him as a substitute father figure, a friend, a mentor, a sidekick. As she'd grown, though, and reached adulthood, she'd begun seeing him as more than that. And her last visit home, a year ago, had cemented the resolution in her mind. She wanted him, she loved him. More than she'd ever wanted anything. But how was she going to get him to stop seeing her as the kid he called her, and see her as a woman? 

She parked the car in the detached garage, wandered around the side of the building. As she'd guessed, the X-Men were out there passing the hot summer day in the pool. Her eyes scanned the crowd, looking for the one person she wanted to see most, and found him, sitting at one of the tables, drinking a beer with Remy and Bobby. Her heart gave a queer jump when she saw him. Oh, how she'd missed him!

Jean turned, saw her, and flicked a thought tendril to her. **Jubilee, why don't you get changed and join us?** she said.

__

You don't have to ask me twice, she thought, and heard Jean's silvery mental laugh as the redhead returned to her conversation with Scott.

She hurried up to her room, tossed her bags thoroughly for her swimsuit. It was a blue two piece affair, a thong top and a boy-cut short underneath that matched her eyes. She'd bought it in France when she was there, and had gotten to the conference a couple of days early just so she could go tanning on the French Riviera. She still had traces of that tan, and as she looked at herself in the full-length mirror, she smiled. Wolverine would definitely find her appealing. She grabbed her towel and ran off to join her friends outside. 


	2. Attraction

Chapter 2: Attraction

Logan sat under the shade of the umbrella, watching Jean use her telekinesis to execute a perfect somersault in midair off the diving board. Water splashed gently as she entered the water smoothly, and swam underwater to join Scott at the side of the pool.

He took another gulp of his beer. It was getting hotter, and he knew he'd have to go in for a dip soon. He finished the bottle, tossed it into the trashcan and stood up…just as a gorgeous young black-haired woman walked around the low fence surrounding the pool.

He stared, openmouthed, glad her back was toward him as she spread a deep sapphire towel out on one of the lounge chairs surrounding the Olympic-sized pool. Jean waved at her, and the girl walked over to the poolside and sat down, dangling her feet in the water. Logan almost swallowed his cigar; she had strong, tanned, slim legs and arms, and the hair that fell down her back was raven-black with almost blue highlights. Jean said something, and she laughed. The silvery sound carried across the activity in the pool, and he saw Bobby stop in mid-stroke. Bobby gave one startled gasp, went under, spluttering; then found his footing and just stared.

Remy froze, staring at the young woman too. Logan sniffed the scent that came to his nose as the slight breeze shifted, and he smelled a deliciously musky woman's scent that seemed familiar but subtly altered. Then she turned, and strolled casually back to the chair, taking off her sunglasses, and he saw who it was.

Jubilee!

He stared at the vision in front of him, shocked. He was trying to reconcile the image of the perky, vivacious youngster in the polished, mature young woman he saw now, but it was hard. So was something else.

Beside him, Remy was similarly shocked. The little firecracker they all remembered was different now. She had a woman's curves now, and he felt a surge of desire. He reached casually over to put his beer down, and stifled a grin. Logan was standing, facing that vision, and there was a very definite bulge in the swimming trunks. "Hey, _homme_," he snickered. "She might take offense to dat."

Logan growled and sat back down, hiding his body's reaction to Jubilee's new maturity. He sat there for a moment, trying to control himself, as she saw them and came bounding over to them. "Hey, Remy! Wolvie!" she said brightly. "I didn't see you over here!" she laughed.

_Liar,_ Logan thought as he shifted position to hide the bulge in his shorts, and watched her eyes follow his movement. _You knew damn well I was over here!_

Jubilee had seen the bulge, and she knew what it meant. Her mouth curved in a smile that had little to do with the way Remy was bending himself in half over her hand. So Logan did find her attractive. The fish had seen the bait; now to get him hooked on it. As she was considering how best to go about it, she saw the glare he shot at Remy. So that was it. Jealousy. He never could stand to see anyone take something he considered his.

Her eyelashes fluttered and she smiled at Remy. "Flatterer," she grinned at him. "But I'm glad to see you anyway." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

Remy had stared as she came into the pool area too. Unlike Logan, he knew who it was almost as soon as she'd walked in. She was stunning, and he'd planned on seducing her…until he saw Logan's reaction to her. Logan hadn't even known it was Jubilee!

As she simpered for him and he felt Logan's glare, Remy caught her glance at Logan. When she knew he'd seen her gaze, she gave him one slow wink with her other eye, the one Logan couldn't see. Ah. So that was the game. The p'tite wanted Logan.

He crushed down his feeling of disappointment. After all, Jubilee wasn't really his type. And with all the time she spent hanging around him, this was inevitable. If Logan couldn't see that, then he was going to get blindsided by Jubilee's tricks. Remy didn't feel sorry for him one bit. 

Jubilee grinned at him as he stood. "Feel like swimming?"

'Don' min' if I do," he said, turning slightly away from Logan and returning her wink. She smiled wider, and turned to Logan, bending over him and kissing him on the cheek. "I'll see you later, Wolvie," she said as she bounced off beside Remy.

Logan watched them go, his hand rubbing his cheek where she'd kissed him. There was something there…when her lips touched his cheek, there was almost an electric shock where her lips touched his skin. He didn't dare get up right now; her touch had only fueled the fire raging in him, and he didn't want anyone to see the reaction he'd had. She was a child! 

"No she's not," said a voice, and the last person he really wanted to see at just that point slid into the chair Remy had vacated. Jean dropped Remy's empty beer bottle into the nearby trashcan with distaste and looked seriously at Logan. "She's not a child anymore, Logan. Stop kidding yourself."

"Eavesdropping on my thoughts?" he said, watching as the other X-Men crowded around Jubilee, welcoming her home. Even Xavier, who was also out here watching them play in the pool and enjoying the sunlight, went to say hello.

"It was sort of hard to miss," she said dryly, punching his arm lightly. "You were thinking so loud I could hear you even through my shields. I'm sure Charles did, too. And it was kind of hard to miss the pup tent thing happening a little further south when you stood up. Even Scott noticed that."

Logan reddened, clamping his calves together under his chair. Jean pretended she didn't see the shift and looked away. She caught Jubilee's eye and winked. The younger girl returned to her conversation with Bobby, who was hanging rather obviously on her every word.

"She's twenty-four, Logan," she said. "She's no longer a child, not under any sense of the word. And you certainly don't see her as a child, or you wouldn't be sitting here trying to convince yourself she is. You see her now as a lovely, desirable woman."

Logan snorted and took a swallow of his beer. "A' right, I admit it. She's gorgeous. But what kinda bastard would I be if I let a young thing like 'er fall in love with an ol' man like me?"

Jean spluttered for a moment, then laughed so hard she nearly fell off the chair. "Logan, whatever makes you think you're old? You may be in chronological years, but with your healing factor, it's going to be a very long time before you feel age creeping up on you. Good lord, I wake up mornings with more aches than I think you do!" she laughed again. "And you didn't 'let' her fall in love with you. She's been in love with you for a few years, since that one weekend you took her out for her twenty-first birthday and got her drunk for the first time. You of all people should know that some of the things someone says when they're drunk do come from the heart. Jubilee meant every word she said that night. You just weren't listening because you still saw her as a child."

Logan listened to this in silence. It was true, but… "How didja know?" he said. "Bout the whole birthday thing, I mean. I didn't tell anyone."

Jean grinned again. "Jubilee told me what happened in an email she sent me. She was actually asking about a hangover remedy, and she told me everything that happened." At his startled look, she held up a hand. "I didn't tell anyone else, honest. But she'd already gone and talked to Ororo about it. We're the only ones who know, and you know she wouldn't tell either."

Logan remembered the event clearly, though he'd tried to put it as far out of his mind as possible. Jubilee had been on spring break, and he'd gone up to get her, riding on his bike. They'd gone out to a local bar that he knew the college kids went to, and gotten her drunk. Jubilee had spit the stuff out, but when he challenged her, she'd risen to the challenge and downed two before he'd stopped her. She'd never drunk alcohol before, and an hour after they'd walked in she'd staggered out completely drunk. When they got back to her dorm, which was mercifully empty, she'd thrown up on her bathroom floor. He'd laughed at her and helped her down the hall to her room, but when he was about to leave, she'd grabbed his sleeve and stopped him. "Stay with me, Logan." It was the first time he'd ever heard her use his name, as though they were equals, and not Wolvie, Wolvster, or one of any other number of cutesy nicknames she'd come up with to call him over the years of hanging out with him. 

So he'd stopped and turned around, and she'd sat on her bed for a long time, he in her desk chair, and talked. "You know, I've been in love with you for the longest time," she'd said. "Every time I see someone here on campus I think I might like, I find myself comparing him to you, and then he's not so good anymore. I love you, and I think I have for a long time." Shocked by that revelation and believing that she'd said it because she'd been drunk at the time, he'd ignored it and tried to put it out of his mind as soon as he left. 

He'd continued to ignore the conversation, and she'd never spoken about it again, though he'd sometimes thought about it late at night when he couldn't sleep. Although it was four years ago, there'd been hints then about the devastatingly beautiful woman she'd become. He hadn't seen her much over the next few years...in fact, he hadn't seen her at all until that afternoon. Phone calls with her weren't the same.

Jean sat quietly as those thoughts ran through his mind. When Scott turned and called to her, she waved, then stood up. "Think about it, Logan," she said. "You're not making her love you. She already does. And she's not a child. Deep inside, you know that. Now come over and say hello with the rest of us." She dove back into the pool and swam around to the side Jubilee was sitting at, joining Scott and the others. Logan sat for a while, digesting Jean's words, then got up and went to sit at the edge of the pool.

Jubilee grinned at Jean as the redhead swam up. **I had a little talk with Logan,** Jean said. **You should appreciate the results.**

Sure enough, in a few moments Logan came sauntering over. Jubilee scooted over and made a place for him beside her by the pool, and after a single moment's hesitation, he sat down.

This close to her, he could breathe in her scent. She was intoxicating, like a fine heady wine, and he felt as though he were drunk sitting beside her. Her hair had grown a lot longer since that evening in her dorm room, and he had to keep himself from reaching out to touch the dark curls. "Huh? What?" he said as he belatedly realized his name had been called.

Jubilee had seen his distracted expression, and she chuckled to herself. She'd started growing out her hair, mostly because she wanted a change, and secondly because she knew he loved long hair. She slid into the pool gasping as the cool water touched her hot skin, and looked at the volleyball net set up at the midpoint of the pool. "Who's up for a game?" she said, her eyes sparkling.

Scott pulled Jean up on his shoulders as Warren did the same for Betsy. Rogue, wearing a wetsuit and water shoes, slipped on neoprene gloves and pulled herself onto Remy's shoulders. Jubilee turned to Logan. "Logan? Will you be my partner?"

"Huh?" he asked. 

She repeated, "Will you be my partner? Rogue and I want to see if we can beat Jean and Betsy like we used to."

He slid into the pool and slipped under her legs, pulling down on her slim ankles and snuggling her groin against the back of his neck. As he took up position beside Remy, his mind wasn't on the game. All he could think about was those firm legs wrapped around him, and if he turned his head around at just the right angle, he could…

Then the game started, and he had to concentrate, since Jubilee's petite size put her at a disadvantage against the taller Jean and Betsy. Rogue served, Jean returned, Jubilee smacked the ball with her hand, and Betsy spiked the ball over the net. Jubilee dove for the ball, got it just in time before it hit the water, and passed it back over. Jean, in a desperate attempt to save the ball from hitting the water, caught it with her telekinesis, and Jubilee screamed with laughter. "Cheating! You cheated!"

Jean looked chagrinned and passed the ball telekinetically over the net, and Jubilee got ready to serve. As she lifted the ball, everyone suddenly yelled, and she felt the water grow freezing around her ankles. She saw Bobby with his hands in the water, freezing the water. Already Scott was shivering as ice trapped his body in place.

"Bobby!" Jubilee screamed, too upset by the ruination of her game to be amused by his prank. She leaned over and touched the water with her hands, using her power to speed up the molecules in the water until her side grew warm again. Bobby's ice warred with her warmer water before he gave up, and Scott stopped shivering as Jubilee sped up the water molecules around him to warm the water.

"That was cold!" she howled at him, and slapped her hand down on the water as she slid off Logan's shoulders. A spray of warm water splashed out of the pool and struck him. He yelped as his ice covering began to melt, and quickly built it up again. She heated the water further when she splashed him the next time, and he stared in disbelief as his ice melted quicker than the last time. Leaping to Bobby's defense, Remy ducked out from under Rogue and sent a shower of water toward Jubilee. She sent one outward toward him as well. That was all that the others needed. Soon there was a veritable orgy of splashing as everyone took sides and splashed someone else. Bobby got a great deal of water in his face and lungs, as Warren, Scott, Logan, and Remy took their revenge against him for freezing them.

The water battle didn't slow down until Ororo and Bishop came down to the pool to call everyone in to supper. Logan hoisted himself out of the pool and went to Jubilee's chair, sweeping up her blue towel and wrapping her in its capacious folds as she emerged, dripping. He tried not to stare at the swimshorts hanging so temptingly on that smooth, tanned curvy hip, at the thong bikini top and full, curving breasts…and failed. Jubilee noticed his glazed eyes, and smiled to herself as she went to change.

After a brief shower, she slipped into her room and looked through her clothes. She didn't have a lot of casual clothes, unfortunately; on her lectures she'd had more use for suits and dresses than jeans and shirts. She wriggled finally into her only pair of jeans; a worn, battered, comfortable pair that hung low on her hip and dipped low over her flat stomach, then chose a loose, comfortable tank top in a deep cranberry color. The color was becoming; and she had the pleasure of seeing Logan's eyes widen as she came down the stairs. She could almost hear him panting after her as she walked into the dining room. He took his usual seat just down from her, watching her as she helped herself to various dishes.

Dinner was delicious; Storm, Hank, Kurt, and Bishop had been working all day making all of Jubilee's favorite dishes. She savored the taste of Kurt's German potatoes, Storm's vegetable stir-fry, Bishop's roast beef. In between bites she updated them on what she had been doing, the places she'd been, the people she'd met, and the progress of her work. Hank asked her a question about the paper she just had published in a scientific journal, and in the conversation that followed Jubilee forgot to watch Logan.

He sat and picked at his food for most of the dinner, watching her when it wouldn't be obvious. Jean was giving him looks from her end of the table; Storm was doing the same, but neither one said anything. He was grateful for that.

When dinner was over and he checked the chore schedule, he was half-disappointed and half-relieved to find he was supposed to do dishes. Disappointed because he wouldn't be able to fill his eyes with her while he was in the kitchen; and relieved because he felt as though he would explode if he had to sit there and watch her any longer. She was pointedly avoiding him; aside from some small talk she hadn't said much to him. Well, he hadn't exactly been the soul of friendliness to her either, mostly because he was so wrapped up in the conflicting roil of emotions surrounding her homecoming that he hadn't really been able to speak to her, he was so tongue-tied. So he went to the kitchen with Remy and Bobby and Betsy, grimly doing dishes.

There was lots of small talk around the sink, but not much from him. Remy and Bobby had found a quick moment to brief Betsy on Logan's unusual silence, and she seemed determined to leave the subject alone. 

He was thinking furiously. Jean was right; he didn't see Jubilee as a child any longer. He saw her as a beautiful, desirable woman. She was certainly mature enough to handle a physical relationship; he had received an Email from her that hinted delicately at the fact that she had pursued at least two while she was in college. She had certainly made her interest in him plain. And he had to admit, deep down inside himself, that he did love her. He was still uncertain whether that love was platonic or sexual in nature, but he was fairly certain it was the latter. Especially given his physical reaction to her mere presence earlier. He had to admit, during the time she'd been gone, he'd thought of her more often and more obsessively than he'd ever thought of anyone before. The other women that he'd loved, he still loved them, but what he felt for Jubilee was different from anything he'd felt before.

By the time the dishes were done she had finished handing out the gifts and presents for all her fellow X-Men, and complaining of tiredness, she'd gone to her room. Logan checked the small pile left on the rec room table, but the packages there were all for Remy, Betsy, or Bobby. There was none for him.

He turned away, bitter. Maybe she hadn't gotten anything for him because she was still upset with him. When he'd last seen her, on her twenty-first birthday four years before, and she had told him she loved him, he'd laughed at her. 

"Yer jokin'," he'd laughed shakily at her, because he didn't want to believe it was true. She'd stared at him, hurt clouding her sapphire eyes. 

"I'm not," she'd said quietly, seriously. "I've never been more serious in my life. I love you, Logan, and I think I always have. At first I thought it was just because you were like a father to me; then when I went off to the Massachusetts Academy and I found I really missed you, I began to suspect that it was something else. Now I know for certain. I love you, Logan."

"Yer drunk, Jubes," he'd told her. "Git some sleep. You'll regret whatever you said in the mornin'."

"No I won't," she struggled to sit up, but he turned and walked out of her room, cutting off whatever else she'd wanted to say. He hadn't wanted to hear whatever else she'd been about to say; he was, honestly, afraid to. So he'd walked out, without saying goodbye. He'd heard a thump of a pillow hitting the door as he closed it, but he'd thought at the time that he was doing the right thing, refusing to allow her to hang on to her fantasies, and didn't look back.

Now, as he walked up the stairs to his room, he wondered if he'd been wrong. They certainly hadn't been childish fantasies if she had hung on to them this long. Four years had gone by since she'd confessed her love to him. If she had hung on to them this long, maybe there was a chance she really did love him.

His room door was closed. He frowned; he usually left it open when he wasn't in it. He placed his hand on the knob, knowing the moment he opened it who was inside.


	3. Hurt

Chapter 3: Hurt

Jubilee sat on the edge of his bed next to two large leather saddlebags meant for his bike. From where he stood by the door, he could smell the leather, and knew it was expensive. He'd always wanted a set like them, but hadn't wanted to spend the money on it.

"My god, Jubes," he whispered, awed, as he came forward and felt the leather. "Where did you find these? They're wonderful!"

He looked at her, and the words died on his lips. She wore a pale-blue satin pajama top that buttoned low over her breasts and high over her stomach, and smooth, loose satin pants that hugged her hip. The barest hint of white lace peeked seductively over the top of those pants. He wondered if she knew, and wondered if she realized what the sight of that white lace was doing to his anatomy.

Jubilee knew. She leaned back on his bed, resting on her elbows, swinging her bare feet in the air above the floor. "Look inside," she said, happy that her present for him could bring him such pleasure. The bags and their contents had cost her a fortune; it had taken the proceeds from many of her speaking engagements to pay for them, but his pleasure was worth it. Logan never took his eyes off her as he unzipped the first one. A wool coat made of the lightest, finest Chinese alpaca fleece and lined with the finest raw silk, popped out. Then a leather jacket, made in the same manner as the saddlebags, embossed with the Harley-Davidson logo on his bike. A custom-made helmet came out of the second pocket. Thickly lined and padded, it was painted black, with three silver slashes on either side, looking as though the helmet had been scarred by his claws. He was awestruck, not only by the value and quality of the gifts, but also by the thoughtfulness and care with which she'd chosen them.

"Jubes," he breathed, staring at the helmet, then words failed him. He groped for words, then, failing to find them, he leaned over her where she lay on his bed, and kissed her.

It wasn't the quick peck on the cheek he'd given her before; this was the long, passionate kiss of lovers. She was hesitant at first, but as he pressed his lips against hers, her lips parted the barest bit, and he deepened the kiss.

For long minutes there was no sound. Jubilee closed her eyes, surrendering herself to his kiss. She had wanted this for so long… She gave in for just a moment longer, then broke it off, sliding smoothly across the bed away from him, and stood on the opposite side of the bed, breathing hard.

"Darlin'," he started, only to have her hold up a hand to stop him. Confused, he stopped.

"Logan," she said quietly, "I know you think I'm still a little girl. You think I wasn't serious about what I said that night you took me to that bar. I think you've spent the day reconsidering.

"I love you, Logan. It's not what you think; it's not just childish fancy. It's been ten years since I was here as one of the X-Men, living here and hanging out with you, and I know at times I must have come across to you as an annoying little tagalong."

Logan bit his lip. He had indeed. Not often, but there had been times…

She continued. "There's a lot of difference between fourteen and twenty-four. I grew up real fast after Bastion captured me. I had to. I had to survive. I kept thinking of you, hoping you would come and get me and save me, and yet afraid if you came he would use me to get to you. He interrogated me; he kept asking me where he could find you and the others. I didn't tell him. It cost me." She turned her wrists upward, and he saw, under the tan, the white scar lines of manacles clamped tight around her wrists. When he looked back up, her eyes were dark and haunted by her memories of pain. He wanted to take her in his arms, apologize for not being there, for what she had to endure in that hell...but she moved away from him when he tried to step toward her.

"I don't want you to feel like I'm making you do anything," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I want you to decide on your own that you love me. Because you do, Logan. Why else would you have written me all those long, gossipy Emails while I was in college? And the way you kept coming up to see me, annoying Frosty…Ms. Frost," she amended. "And the look on your face when you saw me come in this afternoon. And yes," she flicked her glance downwards to his groin and smiled a bit, "I saw your instincts taking over. It was rather hard not to. And I know Jean talked to you. Don't say anything now, Logan. Think about it." She kissed him, surprised that she no longer had to tiptoe; she and he were almost of a height now. Then she opened his door and slipped out.

Logan sat on the bed, buried his face in his hands, and groaned. He felt like a bastard. She really did love him. She had told him, once, long ago when he'd first met her, that she wouldn't allow herself to love anyone again, because everyone she loved died. First her parents, then her foster parents. But she'd eventually opened her heart again, to him. Very few of the others saw her insecurity, her uncertainty, her moody, melancholy side. Jean, Storm, and he were the closest friends she had, the only ones she'd allow herself to open up to. He'd seen all her moods; happy, sad, afraid, insecure, in pain…she'd opened herself to him completely.

And he'd done the same. She'd seen him at his best and at his worst. The berserker rage, the rage that even scared Storm, hadn't fazed her. She'd never been afraid of him, in whatever mood he was in. When he went on one of his long trips, she would be there waiting for him when he got back. She had rescued him in Australia, when the Reavers had crucified him, and used every ounce of skill and ingenuity she had to keep him safe and hidden until he'd healed.

He stared at the saddlebags and jacket, touched them, and tried them on. They both fit perfectly. The wool would keep him warm in the cold weather and snows of Canada, and the jacket would look good and keep him warm when he went bar hopping late at night. He sat looking at the helmet she had designed and had made just for him, and just stayed numb for a while. Then he set all the gifts aside, and turned out the light, undressing in the dark and lying there for a long while, thinking. He drifted off into a light sleep.

Jubilee slipped into bed and lay for a while, thinking. The mention of Bastion had brought up memories she'd tried her hardest to forget, and a few of the bitter tears that fell to her old pillow were for the pain she remembered. The rest of the tears were for Logan.

How could he even still think it was just childish fancy? She hadn't been a child for a long time. The mess with Bastion had forced her to grow up, and after that, nothing had been the same anymore. Her rollerblades had gone into her closet. She'd never taken them out again. The mallrat she'd been had been replaced by a serious, thoughtful young woman. 

She had surprised herself by choosing a career as a physicist; she'd never had especially good grades in school. Oh, they were good enough, good, but not outstanding. But physics intrigued her, since she'd discovered that was how her power operated. Those little fireworks that she produced were made between the interaction of atoms and molecules in different quantities, and she had striven to understand the way they worked, only to find that there was not much out there that would explain how her power worked, or why it worked. So she'd taken every related course in college, studied extensively, and began to write her own papers on atomic and subatomic particle theory based on how she'd discovered her powers worked. She'd been praised, lauded, and criticized for her 'revolutionary new approach' to physics, and the notice she had received catapulted her quickly to the top of her profession.

She had gotten her life back together, and more. Now there was just one more loose end to tie up; Logan. She drifted off into a troubled sleep, exhausted by the day's activities and suffering from jet lag.

__

Bastion stood over her, a sneer of hatred twisting his face into a grotesque mask. "Tell me what I want to know, freak," he snarled. She was crouching on the floor in front of him, bound and helpless, screaming as he jabbed an electrical prod at her body and limbs. Again, and again, and again. Pain wracked her body, and she begged him to stop, told him she couldn't tell him what he wanted to know because she didn't know, but he knew she was lying, and he kept shocking her over and over.

She passed out. He dashed a bucketful of cold water on her, bringing her back to agonizing consciousness. "Freak," he snarled at her, and the torture began again. As her screams filled her ears, some dazed, detached part of her mind remembered someone who could help her, who could save her. "Logan!" she screamed, hardly aware of what she was saying, delirious with agony. "Logan, help me, oh God, where are you, I need you, save me, please!" But he didn't come, even though he'd always been there before. He simply wasn't here now, and she was beginning to doubt she would ever see him again. Still, she clung to hope as tightly as she clung to her sanity and the tiny piece of knowledge that he wanted, that she knew she couldn't give him. "Logan, help me, please!" but he wasn't there, no one was there, and she was alone, left to bear the burden of her pain alone. "Logan, please…"

Logan sat up in bed. Something had woken him, some tiny sound, he wasn't sure from where. He got out of bed, went to the door, silently opened it, and looked out. He was about to close the door and go back to bed when a whisper of sound reached his sensitive ears…a low moan, as of someone in pain. He tracked the sound down to a door halfway down the corridor; Jubilee's door. He opened the door.

Jubilee lay on the sheets, the comforter having slipped to the floor as she convulsed. He sucked in a breath as he studied her straining body, every muscle tight and locked. She trembled with the strain; he knew she was going to be sore the next day. 

A hissing moan escaped her gritted teeth, and she gave a gasp. Except for those soft sounds, she was eerily silent, as if afraid to wake anyone. Some part of her must know she was dreaming. As he paused at the door, uncertain whether he should leave, or stay with her, he heard her moan again, and her lips moved. "Logan," she whispered, "Please, oh please save me…Bastion…"

He closed her door and went to her bed, stopping beside her. "Jubilee," he said quietly. "Jubilee, wake up." She flinched with each repetition of her name. He reached out, touched her shoulder.

She went wild on the bed, screaming aloud now. "NO STOP IT PLEASE DON'T TOUCH ME OH GOD I HURT DON'T HURT ME ANYMORE PLEASE DON'T HURT ME--" Her fists flailed, striking his cheek, his eye, his arm, as she writhed against him, screaming at the top of her lungs. Tears streamed down her cheeks from her screwed shut eyes.

Logan grabbed her fists as she struck blindly, cutting her knuckles open on the headboard of the bed. "Jubes, it's me!" he cried into her ear, sitting on the edge of the bed and capturing her writhing body against his. "Jubilee, wake up!" She continued to writhe, screaming in anguish. He continued to clutch her tightly as she slid from the bed, her bare feet drumming against the floor.

A door slammed somewhere down the hall, and seconds later Jubilee's door flew open. Logan saw Jean silhouetted against the bright hall light for a moment before she ran in, falling to her knees beside the tow. "What happened?" she asked Logan tersely.

"I don't know," he said desperately, still keeping a tight hold on Jubilee's wrists. "I heard a noise an' came ta fin' out what it was. I foun' her on the bed havin' a nightmare. I tried ta wake her. As soon's I touched her she went wild. I hadda grab her ta keep her from hurtin' herself."

Jean placed a hand on Jubilee's temple. **Jubilee, wake up. You're safe, no one's going to hurt you now. Bastion's gone. Wake up, Jubilee.**

Jubilee's eyes snapped open, and she took a great gasp of air, as though she'd been suffocating. Logan cradled her gently against him, whispering soft nothings in her ear as she huddled against his chest and cried stormily. Jean sat back on her heels, looking shaken. "It was Bastion. She was having nightmares again."

"Again? This happened before?"

Jean nodded, pushing her tangled hair back off her forehead. "She wrote me Emails saying she was still having nightmares. She found out that if she was overtired or had done something strenuous that day, she'd have nightmares. She even went so far as to sleep with a wad of cloth in her mouth sometimes to keep anyone else in the hotel from hearing her scream." Jean looked anguished. "I told her to come home, that Charles and I could help her through them, but she stayed away. She said she had to get through this herself. She seemed like she was getting better; but something must have triggered the memories today and she slipped back into the nightmares."

Logan cradled Jubilee's shaking body to him, stroking her hair. Why had she not told him? Some of the Emails she'd sent him had seemed a little odd, but he'd chalked that down to jet lag, or to overwork. He didn't know about these. "Jubilee. Jubes," he said, sliding into the pet name he had for her, "why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it would have worried you," came the sobbed reply, and Jubilee looked up at him, her face streaked with tears. "You were feeling guilty enough already, about not being there. I didn't want you to know what I went through, too."

He held her tight to him as she started to cry again, rocking her back and forth. Guilt overwhelmed him. His talk with her had triggered the memories again; it was his fault they had reawakened.

****

Will you stay with her? Jean said to him telepathically.

He nodded, and she pushed herself off her knees, pulling her nightrobe tight around her. Only then did Logan look up. Bobby, Scott, Remy, Betsy, Storm, and Rogue stood in the doorway, blinking and looking startled. Jean waved them all away from the door, and closed it firmly, leaving Logan and Jubilee alone in her room. Logan hummed tunelessly for a long time, holding her and rocking her back and forth, until her sobs quieted. When he looked down again, she was asleep.

He got to his feet with little difficulty, cradling her in his arms, and laid her back down on the bed. He pulled the sheets back over her, tugged the comforter back over her huddled body, and remade the bed around her. He was about to leave her room when she stirred. When he turned around her haunted sapphire eyes were staring directly at him. "Stay," she whimpered. "Logan, stay with me, please. The nightmares don't come when you're with me."

He sat back down on the floor beside her bed, and she inched herself close to him to grasp his hand. He got up on the bed when he realized how uncomfortable she was, and stretched out beside her. She rolled over until her back was pressed up against his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her. When he looked next, she was soundly asleep. He stayed awake a long time, staring across the room out the window where a full moon silvered the sill. She hadn't told him because she hadn't wanted him to know. She didn't want him to know how she'd been hurt, how she'd called for him, cried for him, begged for him to help her, to save her.

He wondered if Xavier ever regretted his decision to send Jubilee off to the Massachusetts Academy. He sure had. Logan had opposed it all from the start, raging at Xavier when Chuck had insisted. But for her sake he'd pretended to agree, pointing out how much better it would be for her to be able to hang with kids her own age. For a while it had seemed like she was adjusting, and he had wondered if Chuck had made the right decision after all. Then came the events surrounding Operation: Zero Tolerance. Logan had thought his heart was going to stop when he found out Jubilee had been a prisoner of that madman named Bastion. All the times he'd ever really needed a helping hand she'd been there, giving him a hand when _he_ needed it. And the one time she needed him, _really_ needed him, he hadn't been there.

She whimpered in her sleep, and he hugged her a little tighter. "Sssh. I'm here, darlin. I ain't never goin' nowhere again when ya need me." She sighed, relaxed, and slipped a little deeper into slumber. He finally slipped into an exhausted, restless sleep, and didn't wake until morning.


	4. Memories

Chapter 4:

Bright sunlight shone down on the young woman sleeping on the bed beside him when he woke. For a moment his mind fuzzily tried to grasp what he was doing in someone else's room rather than his own, but then the memory of last night flooded back and he propped himself up on his elbow to stare at the sleeping girl beside him.

In sleep she looked so peaceful, so quiet. Except for dried tear streaks on her cheeks, he could almost believe nothing had happened. He reached out, gently brushed a strand of tangled hair back from her cheek, and kissed her temple gently. She stirred, sighed, and rolled over, snuggling closer to him. He wanted to stay there with her, but he couldn't. He eased his arm out from under her head, wincing at the stiffness in the limb, and slid out of bed.

After a quick stop in the bathroom, he went to his room and put on a fresh change of clothes, then went down to the kitchen. Xavier and Storm were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and talking quietly. When they looked up and saw him coming, Storm got up. "Good morning, Logan."

He acknowledged her greeting with a grunt, and headed for the coffeemaker. Storm beat him to it. "Sit down and speak with Charles," she said. "I'll fix you a cup. Two sugars?"

He wrinkled his nose. "Make that black, 'Ro," he said. "After las' night, I need somethin' strong ta wake me up."

"Jean hasn't woken up yet," Xavier said as he sat down. "I would like to know what happened. First though, is Jubilee all right?"

"Yeah. She's still sleepin'," Logan took the cup Ororo handed him, and thanked her as she sat back down beside him. "She didn't have any more dreams the res' of the night, thank goodness." He put the cup down. "She begged me ta stay with 'er las' night. Said the dreams don' come when I'm there."

Storm sipped her own cup. "She sleeps some nights with your picture under her pillow," she admitted quietly. "She told me so in an email she wrote me once. It helped her sleep."

Logan groaned and ran a hand through his hair. "Chuck, can I ask ya a question?" he said. "I been wondering…ya ever regret sendin' her off to Massachusetts?"

Xavier sighed, and took a sip of his. "Sometimes yes," he said quietly. "Especially when something brings back the memories of that Operation Zero Tolerance mess. I'm very proud of the woman she's become, and all the experiences she's had combine to make her the woman she is…but I wish sometimes that I could erase some of the bad things that happened to her. Like Bastion." His face twisted in an expression of loathing. "He accused us of being monsters…when he was one himself, torturing children." He sipped his coffee again. "So what exactly did happen?" he said.

Logan put his cup down. "I musta heard a soun' in my sleep, an' I woke up. It was all quiet when I checked the hall, an' I was about to go back ta sleep when I heard Jubilee moan. I opened her room door…I jus' wanted ta make sure she was okay," he said hastily, thinking about what Xavier might say about him walking into a young girl's room uninvited. Xavier nodded, unperturbed, and Logan went on. "I walked in an' I saw her on th' bed, stretched out like she was still tied up. She was all tensed up, and she was whimperin'. Pain." He shook his head at the image of his Jubes writhing in the bed in remembered agony, and his fist clenched. "It hurt me jus' watchin' her. I was goin' ta leave, but she whispered my name, an' I jus' couldn' leave 'er like that.

"So I tried ta wake her up. As soon as I touched her, she went wild, just twistin' all over th' bed. She hit the bed a coupla times, an' cut open her knuckles, so I grabbed her wrists ta keep her from hurtin' herself anymore. And she just exploded. Started screamin', beggin' me not ta touch her, not ta hurt her anymore. She fell off th' bed, an' took me wit' her. An' then Jean come in. She went into Jubes's head an' woke her up, and Jubilee jus' started cryin' like I ain't never seen her cry before."

There were footsteps on the steps in the back of the kitchen, and Scott and Jean came down. Both were dressed, but Jean hadn't bothered to brush out her hair yet, and it hung in wild disarray around her face. "I checked on Jubilee before I came down," she said. "She's still asleep. I figured I'd let her sleep as long as possible; she had a very long day yesterday." She yawned as Scott steered her over to another empty chair. "Sit down," he directed her. "I'll get your coffee. Your usual, sweetheart?"

"Black," Jean rubbed her eyes. "After last night, I need it." She turned to Logan. "How did she sleep the rest of the night?"

"Okay," he said. "Least she didn' wake up screamin' again, though she did moan some in her sleep. Jean, I ain't never seen Jubes fall apart like that. Scairt the hell outta me."

Jean sighed. "Charles, I think we should see what we can do about this. She's been having these nightmares off and on for quite some time, according to her. They've been less frequent lately, but stress tends to bring them out again. I think she's trying to handle something she really can't deal with herself, and she's not making much headway."

Xavier sighed. "I think so too. Which incident was it this time?"

"When Bastion scarred her ribs with that damn electric prod. It seems to be one of the worse memories."

"I didn' see any scars," Logan spoke up. "In that bathing suit she wore yesterday, I didn't see any scars."

"She had them removed," Jean said. "Some of them were quite noticeable. They were reminders of something she'd rather have forgotten."

"Why didn' she tell me what she was goin' through, Jean?" Logan's eyes looked haunted.

Jean looked at him seriously as she accepted her coffee from Scott. "You were already feeling guilty enough about not being there when she needed you. How much more would it have hurt you if you'd known what she was still going through?" She sipped, still looking at him over the rim of her cup. "I wanted her to tell you. She needed someone stronger than 'Ro and I to help her bear some of the burden she was carrying, but she refused. She said just seeing her was bad enough, and you didn't need to know what she'd experienced. She said you carried quite enough of your own pain around with you already. And she made both of us promise not to tell you."

Logan digested this in the silence of the kitchen. Jubilee had always been considerate of his feelings. Thoughtful, caring, compassionate Jubilee. He was going to have a talk with her sometime about what she considered good for him. He would decide what was good for him and what wasn't. And watching her torment herself keeping all this locked in wasn't good for either of them. "What're ya goin' ta do?" he asked finally.

Xavier looked at Jean. She looked back at him. He said, "I was thinking of placing a block around some of the worst of those memories."

Jean shook her head. "I don't think that would be a good idea. I think we should just put some distance between them and her conscious mind. She's still experiencing the nightmares as if they were the first time; she hasn't been able to put any emotional distance between her and them. If we put some perspective on them, get her subconscious to believe that some time had passed since the memories happened, she could maybe start distancing herself from them."

"The nightmares won't stop, though," Logan pointed out.

Jean shook her head. "No they won't. She needs those, Logan. Nightmares are her mind's way of dealing with what happened to her."

"By making her relive what that bastard did to her over and over again? What good is that supposed to do?"

Jean sighed. "That's just the way the mind works, Logan. Dreams are healthy; they help us come to grip with stuff that happens to us while we're awake. You of all people should know that, with the nightmares you have."

He subsided as she went on. "The nightmares won't stop; that will only happen with time, Logan. In fact, if we just put a block on her conscious memories, the nightmares will get more and more violent. She told me she's lucky she hasn't destroyed anything in any of the hotels she's stayed at while she was globe-trotting. But if we put some distance on them, they'll become less violent and she'll be able to start healing mentally. She should also be able to stop gagging herself when she sleeps."

He couldn't argue with that. The thought of Jubilee biting down on cloth to muffle the sound of her screams was not a mental picture he wanted to have of her.

Xavier's eyes got a faraway look for a second. "She's awake," he said finally.

Jean got up and headed for the stairs. "'Ro, can you fix her usual? I'm going to tell her to stay in bed. What Charles and I need to do can be done while she's lying down, and it'll be better for her if it's in her room, where she can feel safe." And she vanished up the stairs. 

Scott put his cup in the sink, then emptied Jean's and rinsed both as Ororo got up and reached in the cupboard. Logan's eyes widened as she pulled out a box of instant oatmeal. "Since when did Jubes start eatin' oatmeal?"

"Since she found out oatmeal is the only thing that stays down after one of these nightmares," Ororo said. "She wakes up and the first thing she will do is go and throw up whatever might be left in her stomach after last night, which, thanks to her high metabolic rate, will not be much. Jean will get her back into bed, and she'll have a bowl of oatmeal." She poured boiling water into the bowl and stirred as she said softly, "Poor child. No one should have to go through something like this."

Xavier took the bowl from Ororo and set it down on top of his hoverchair's platform. "Logan, Jean say's Jubilee is asking for you. If you would accompany me upstairs…"

Jubilee was looking pale as she sat on the edge of her bed, Jean beside her. Jean was wrapping bandaging around the bruised knuckles Jubilee had punched him with the last night when Logan and Xavier came in. She looked immensely glad to see him, and took the bowl of oatmeal from him with a grimace. "I hate this stuff," she said, picking up the spoon and beginning to eat it anyway. "Logan…Wolvie…I hit you last night, Jean said…I'm so sorry…are you okay?"

He sat down beside her and pushed her tangled hair back from her face. "'S okay, darlin'," he said. 'I heal fast. It didn' hurt."

Xavier steepled his fingers and looked at her quietly. "Jubilee, Jean and Logan told me what happened last night," he said. "Please don't take this as an intrusion upon your privacy, but as an offer of help from friends who care deeply about you. Jean and I were discussing your nightmares in the kitchen, and the fact that these dreams are still so violent bothers me. We'd like to help you."

"How?" Jubilee said. "You can't go back and undo what happened." She stared at the bowl in front of her, tears welling up in her blue eyes. "If you really cared you'd have been there for me when I needed help," she whispered. "I wouldn't have been sent off with Frosty."

Xavier actually flinched, and Logan fought down astonishment. In some way, Chuck felt guilty for what had happened to her. He patted her back, avoiding looking at Xavier until the X-Men's founder regained his composure. "We want to place some distance between your memories and the present," Charles said. "We think if your subconscious realizes that some time has elapsed since you got those memories, the nightmares won't be as violent or as draining as they currently are. Will you let us do that?"

Jubilee put the spoon down in her bowl, looking up at him with tear-blinded eyes. "Can you do that?" she whispered. "If you could just…make them less intense…I could handle them better."

"Of course," Xavier said, his own eyes suspiciously bright. "We could do it now, if you like."

Jean took the bowl out of Jubilee's grasp and handed it to Logan, who took it. Jubilee lay on her back on the bed, and Xavier took one hand. Jean took the other. There was silence for several minutes, And Logan turned to leave.

Jubilee suddenly screamed on the bed. He turned, in time to see her convulse. Her hand ripped out of Xavier's and Jean's, and she turned over, sobbing, burying her head in the pillow, pressing her fist to her mouth and sobbing. Xavier slumped back in his hoverchair, taking deep breaths and trying to compose himself. Jean did the same.

Logan couldn't stand to see her cry like that. He dropped the bowl on the dresser and ran back to the bed, taking her shoulders gently and pulling her upright with her back against his chest, hugging her close. "Jubes, Jubes, it's okay," he crooned, distressed by her anguish. "It's okay, you're safe, it's just memories." He tucked her hands into her lap, rubbing her wrists.

She jerked her hands out of his grasp and refused to let him touch them. "Don't, Lo—Wolvie," she said, sobbing a little. "Don't touch my wrists. I can't bear anything touching them anymore. That's how Bastion had me restrained while he…while I was held there."

When she had herself under control again, Jean said, "Let's try doing this another way. Jubilee, I'm going to put you in a light sleep, then we'll try again, okay?" The young woman lay back against Logan's chest, and soon she was breathing evenly. Jean looked at Logan. "No, don't get up," she said. 'Jubilee seems to feel safer with you close. Stay there. Hold her hand. And brace yourself. I know Jubilee made me promise not to let you know about any of the things that happened to her, and she'll probably be mad at me when we're done, but I think it might help calm her down if she feels your presence in her mind. I'm going to pull you into the link with us. Ready?"

Logan leaned back against the headboard of the bed. "Ready," he said. He closed his eyes.

_Mist swirled around them, shot through with lightning. Slowly the mist cleared, and Logan's heart contracted painfully at what he saw. Jubilee knelt in a bright spotlight, clad only in rags tied around her waist and chest, her wrists chained to opposite walls of a tiny cell, shivering. There were raw sores on her wrists and ankles, red welts and marks all over her body, and a dull, hopeless look in her eyes. A heavy metal collar was clamped around her neck, prohibiting the use of her powers. Its winking operating lights looked somehow menacing on the collar's surface._

Footsteps echoed around the three watchers, and Logan watched, eyes narrowed in rage, as Bastion unlocked the door to Jubilee's cell and stepped inside. He carried a long, thick stick with him.

He grabbed her hair, yanked her head back to force her to look at him. Jubilee looked up and sobbed in terror, her throat raw from sobbing and screaming. "Please," she whimpered, breaking Logan's heart, "Please don't hurt me, please stop, I'm just a kid, please," she begged, tears of pain, exhaustion, and terror leaving pale tracks down her dirt-, sweat-, and blood-smeared face. Bastion shoved her head down toward the floor, and she rocked in her bonds. Rope bound her ankles to her thighs, keeping her kneeling before him. Her raw knees scraped open yet again on the hard floor of the cell. Bastion circled her, smiling cruelly. "This is where are your kind of filth should be," he said, poking her with his stick. "Kneeling at my feet, begging for your pathetic life. Beg, little mutie filth."

Jubilee just sobbed.

Bastion raised the stick behind her, as Logan cried out in anguish. The stick crashed down on Jubilee's bare back, eliciting a scream from her as she lurched forward. The manacles yanked cruelly against her wrists, pulling her back into place, and her knees scraped the floor again. When he raised it off her back, Logan could see a new welt on the skin that would become a horrible bruise later. He circled the sobbing girl, brought the stick down again on an existing black bruise. She screamed. He beat her with the stick until she hung limp in the chains, sagging against the restraints that held her, unconscious. He sliced the ropes around her thighs that pulled her ankles tight up to her backside, and then picked up a bucket of water sitting in a corner of the cell and dashed it over her.

Jubilee recovered consciousness, screaming. The circulation was rushing back to her feet and legs, and it hurt like hell. He let her scream for a while, watching her as she writhed in her chains. When her sobbing stopped, he picked the stick back up, did something to the handle. Logan jumped as blue electricity crackled around its tip. She cringed away from it, shrinking from the blue fire, dragging the manacles through the raw sores on her wrists again. He teased her like that for some time, bringing the prod close to allow her to feel the heat of the electricity before pulling it away again. Then he touched her with it.

Jubilee went wild, jerking and writhing in the chains that held her, mouth open in a silent scream of agony. Logan's fists clenched, tears flowing unnoticed from his eyes as he saw her pain. Bastion held the tip of the prod to her body, moving it back and forth across her ribcage just under her breasts. She screamed as her body shuddered. Her howls of agony no longer sounded human. Logan had been in the forest once when a hunter some distance away had unwittingly stepped into a bear trap and the metal jaws had taken the man's leg off. The animal sounds of agony the man had made then sounded like Jubilee now.

Jubilee's body twisted against him, and he had to break the link with Jean to control it, and keep her from tearing her hands from Xavier's and Jean's grasp. Wild, high-pitched keening sounds erupted from her throat as she writhed against him. He held her firmly, tightly, crooning soft sounds into her ear. 

Xavier whispered, "Jubilee, you're all right. You're safe. Jean and I are here. Logan is here. Bastion is gone. We're trying to help you with the memories. Relax, Jubilee. Let us help you." Jean's lips repeated the same words as he spoke them. The body Logan held froze for a moment, warily, then relaxed. Not completely; but there was a loosening of the muscles. Logan reached for Jean's hand again. She tried to shake it off, spared a brief moment to speak telepathically to him. **You don't want to see this, Logan. Trust me, you don't. I don't even want to see this.** There were tears glittering on the edge of Jean's lashes as she sat in the chair beside Jubilee's bed.

Logan pushed insistently at her until she allowed him in. **Don't say I didn't warn you, **she snapped at him as he slipped back into Jubilee's mind with her.

_Jubilee lay on the floor of the cell. Bastion didn't even bother to chain her anymore; she was too weak to fight him, in too much pain to try to escape. He kept her hands cuffed behind her; that was all he had to do._

He approached her now, watching her eyes follow him. Other than her eyes and the shallow rise and fall of her chest, she didn't move. He stopped in front of her, nudged her limp body with the toe of his boot. "You smell," he said. She closed her eyes. "Mutie filth. You smell like the animal you are." He stepped outside the cell, turned on a spigot in the wall that had a hose attached to it, and brought the hose to the door of her cell. Then he aimed the nozzle at her and squeezed the trigger.

A hard spray of icy cold water struck her nude body. She squealed, crawled painfully into the corner of her cell, tried to avoid the icy flow. He stepped in, grabbed her hair, and yanked her head back, aiming the water into her face. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened her mouth, drinking the cold water greedily through cracked, swollen lips. He snorted, dropped her hair. She fell to the floor as he proceeded to aim the hose at every part of her. Then he put the hose down, walked over to her where she knelt, and opened his pants.

Logan gasped in horror as Jubilee screamed. Bastion assaulted her body brutally, violently, ignoring the blood that streaked her thighs and splattered on his pants. She writhed, screamed, tried to wriggle away from him, but he pulled her back onto himself and continued until she passed out from pain and horror of the brutal rape.

Logan broke the link, feeling as though he was going to be sick. Jean was right; he really hadn't wanted to see that. In his arms, Jubilee sagged against him as Jean and Xavier finished doing whatever they were doing to her mind while Logan had been transfixed by the memories. Slow, silent tears crept down her face as she snuggled against him, tears that were mirrored in Jean's eyes as the redhead slumped, exhausted, against her chair. When Logan looked at Xavier, the older man too was crying. Logan sighed and hugged the girl in his lap closer as his own tears fell from his eyes.


	5. Love

Chapter 5: Love

Scott looked up from where he was sitting on the bed reading as Jean walked in. He put the book down and walked over to her, hugging her. She looked like someone had run her through a wringer.

He lay back on the bed. Jean curled up next to him, draping one long leg over his and resting her head on his chest. For a long while there was silence as he held her and she stared into space, tears trickling silently down her cheeks.

"Was it that bad, sweetheart?" he asked finally. Jean shuddered and snuggled closer to him. 

"I can't believe the things Bastion did to her," Jean groaned. "He _tortured_ her, Scott. And then he raped her. It was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen in someone's mind, and you know I've seen a lot. It's a miracle that she managed to survive it, and keep herself together for this long without help." She was silent for a moment. "I took Logan into her mind with me. He saw some of the things she endured. I think he'll think long and hard about that before he calls her 'kid' again."

"Good. He needs to learn to think anyway." But there was no ire in Scott's voice. He knew how much Logan cared for Jubilee. He wasn't entirely okay with Jubilee and Logan becoming an item around the mansion, considering the age difference between the two, but they were both adults. Logan had never done what anyone told him to do, and Jubilee was too headstrong. She would do whatever she wanted to do.

***

Xavier closed and locked his study door, then pulled up around his mind the strongest shields he could create. Only then did he give vent to the tears of anguish that had filled his eyes since he'd left Jubilee's room.

Why had he sent Jubilee off to the Massachusetts Academy? Knowing that the whole country was hunting mutants, knowing about Bastion's vendetta, he'd still sent her away, instead of keeping her here where she was safe. She had been right when she had lashed out at him that morning. He felt guilt, horror, anguish…but most of all, guilt. 

"Jubilee," he whispered into the silence of his study, "Jubilee, child, I'm so sorry. So damn sorry…" but sorrow and regret wouldn't undo what had happened to her. And he knew that. All he could do now was try to help her deal with the aftermath. 

When it had first happened, he'd wanted her to come home with the X-Men as much out of a sense of responsibility and remorse as it was for her own good. She had refused, and he remembered his hurt when she had shut them all out, preferring to bury herself in her studies and try to forget what had happened. Now, knowing what she had suffered and seeing in her mind the buried feelings of betrayal, he wondered if she hadn't done the right thing for herself. There was a great deal of anger there, anger that they hadn't been there for her. Or, more accurately, that Logan hadn't been there for her. He wondered how she'd managed to release all that anger to get to the point where she could allow herself to love Logan again. She was an incredibly strong young woman.

***

Jubilee wandered down the path to the lake, enjoying the peace and quiet. Ororo must have warned everyone that something was brewing, because everyone was avoiding her. She might have been offended if she didn't need the peace so badly.

She sat down by the edge of the lake, took off her shoes, and dangled her feet in the water. After Professor Xavier and Jean had finished tramping about in her head, she'd felt as though her head had been stuffed with cobwebs. The memories she carried about in her head were pleasantly fuzzy now, and she welcomed the change. In the intervening time she'd examined the other memories she had of her time as one of Bastion's captives, and she'd found the same fuzziness around the entire time. It was the same kind of fuzziness she had around the memory of her parents' death. 

"Am I intrudin', darlin'?" Jubilee turned at the sound of Logan's rough, gravelly voice. He stood at the edge of the cleared, clipped grass around the margin of the lake, looking like he wanted to come and sit but fearful of disturbing her solitude if he did.

She shook her head. "'Course not," she said, picking her sneakers up and moving over to make some room on the flat rock she sat on. "You never intrude."

Logan sat on the rock beside her cross-legged, and stared into the water. "I'm so sorry, Jubes," he said quietly. "I'm sorry ya hadda suffer through all that."

She trailed one foot through the water, watching the waves lap at her painted toenails. "I'm going to get Jean," she said grimly. "I never wanted you to know, Log—Wolvie, I didn't want you to feel guilty for not being there. You can't be everywhere all at once."

He captured her chin in his hand. "I'm sorry I wasn't there fer ya. But there's nothin' I can do 'bout that now 'cept be here fer ya. An' I will. If ya need ta talk ta me, 'bout anythin', I'll be here. I love ya, Jubes." He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. They sat like that for a long time.

He disengaged his arm when his legs started going numb, and uncrossed them with difficulty. Jubilee giggled. "Come on," she said, grabbing his pant leg and tugging it up on her lap, "Take off your shoes and socks."

He stared at her. "Why?"

She dragged off his sock and his sneaker, then pushed his foot off her lap into the water. He gasped as the water of the lake hit the soles of his feet. Jubilee got up, walked around to his other side, and did the same to that foot as well. Then she sat down against his back, her legs spread out to either side of his own.

"Jubes…" his voice trailed off. He felt ridiculous sitting here with his feet in the lake.

She giggled. "No one's going to see you, Log--Wolvie," she said, leaning against his back, her breath feeling warm against the back of his neck. "Just enjoy it. You love tramping through the woods, but you hardly ever take the time to stop and smell the roses." She giggled again, pressing her chest against his back and resting her cheek against his shoulderblade.

Her full, curvy, perky breasts pressed into his back, and her body, pressed against his warm back and skin. Her hair brushed his biceps, and he smelled the scent of roses in the tumbling dark locks. A warmth stirred deep inside him, and he irritably pushed it down, along with the bulge in his pants. "Stop that," he said, focusing rather desperately on the one thing he could concentrate on at the moment; her use of his name.

Jubilee leaned close to him. 'Stop what, Log—Wolvie?"

"That." He swatted irritably at a fly buzzing around his head. "Ya keep startin' ta say my name, then ya change it ta that silly nickname ya tagged me with all those years ago." He leaned his head back against her forehead, and felt her lips nuzzle through his hair. "Just call me Logan, Jubes."

"It wouldn't be proper," she said primly, and he turned around to see her looking deliberately prissy. Her eyes, though, twinkled mischievously. "You still see me as a child."

"Tease!" he exclaimed, making a grab for her, but she was ready for some movement of the sort, and danced away out of his reach. He made another grab for her, and she turned and skipped away form him, following the banks of the lake. He sped up, the short grass cool under his bare feet, and tackled her. Jubilee shrieked as her legs went out from under her and she fell headfirst into the lake.

Warm the weather might be, but the lake was still cold. She gasped with the cold, losing precious air as she adjusted to the temperature. This end of the lake was deep, and with a sudden smile to herself, she stroked for the bottom and waited.

Logan stood on the bank, waiting for Jubilee to resurface. He became alarmed when she didn't. "Jubes!" He stepped into the water, waded in a short way, scanning the water for any sign of bubbles. "Jubes!" 

There was a sudden swirl of water beneath the surface, like an underwater breeze around his ankles, then a hand grabbed the ankle firmly and yanked.

His legs flew out from under him, and he sat hard in the freezing water. He opened his eyes under the water, and saw Jubilee floating under the surface. She grabbed his shirt, pulled herself closer to him, and kissed him briefly, then stroked to the surface and gasped in a lungful of air. Her bare feet found footing on the lake bed, and she walked out of the water, flopped down on the grass, and lay for a while, gasping.

Logan stood up in the water, looking at her. Her wet jeans were plastered to her lean, strong thighs, and her transparent wet T-shirt clung to her curves. He swallowed as he looked at her, and every coherent thought fled his head.

She opened one eye, smiled, and rolled over on her stomach. He swallowed; this was even worse. The wet denim clung to the curves of her backside, and he wanted to reach down and touch…

Jubilee knew what was going through his mind; it was fairly evident. The fabric of his pants clung to the outlines of his legs, and she sucked in a breath as his interest in her became more evident with every passing moment. She got up, walked slowly and (she hoped) seductively up to him. Taking his face in her hands, she kissed him, passionately and at length. He was hesitant at first, then brought his arms up around her shoulders and hugged her close as he kissed her back. She closed his eyes, savoring the kiss and the moment, and thought vaguely about finding a comfortable place to sit. Her hands came up, caressed his back, the waistband of his pants, pushed the hem of his shirt up to feel the warm muscles of his back. And as he gently bore her down backwards to the soft moss under a nearby tree and tugged her wet clothing off, she stopped thinking of anything at all but pleasure as she purred under him.

***

Logan peered around the corner of the hall. The coast was clear. He stepped back, grabbed Jubilee's hand, and they made a mad dash for the door to her room. She opened the door and they slipped inside.

She closed the door, breathless with laughter, carrying her wet bra in her hand. She dropped it into the laundry hamper in the corner, then stripped off her wet T-shirt and dropped that into the basket as well. Her wet jeans went next, then her wet panties. Logan's jaw dropped as he saw the smooth, tanned backside disappear into the bathroom.

She came out a moment later, holding a towel and drying herself off with another one. She tossed the towel at him, planted a quick kiss on his lips, then retreated to the other side of the bedroom and dried the remainder of the water off her limbs. Logan determinedly tore his eyes off her and set about undressing and drying himself off. When he straightened up, he discovered he had a problem. "Uh, Jubes," he said. "All my clothes are back in my room."

She looked him up and down, frankly, appreciatively, and said, "From where I'm standing, Logan, that's not a problem."

He blinked. This kind of talk from her was definitely going to take some getting used to. "It will when dinnertime gets here," he growled.

She giggled. He loved that sound; he'd never get tired of listening to that sound. "Don't worry; I wouldn't have suggested we come to my room if I didn't have all that covered." She went to her suitcase and took out a battered pair of jeans and an old T-shirt he had thought long missing.

"So that's where my T-shirt and spare jeans went," he said, taking the clothes from her. "I thought Jean'd stuck 'em in with Scott's blasted stuff and got 'em lost." He dressed in them quickly.

Jubilee shook her head. "No. I swiped them the last time I came home, a year ago. You were gone. I needed them, and I sort of didn't think you'd mind."

"Needed 'em?" he asked. "Why would you need some'a my stuff, Jubes? Especially old clothes?"

She busied herself brushing out her still-damp black hair and didn't look at him as she replied. "I needed something of yours. At night, when the…the dreams…got too bad, I'd dress up in your clothes, and pretend you were with me, holding me. It was the only way I could get to sleep, sometimes."

"Oh, Jubes," he said, hugging her in his arms again. His voice caught in his throat, and he cleared it before he could speak again. "Yer welcome ta take anythin' o' mine that ya need. But I hope ya tell me from now on. 'Stead o' takin' my stuff, take me instead."

She tucked her head under his chin, hugged him. "Thanks, Logan," she said.

There came a polite tap at the door. "Jubilee? Jubilee, are you in there?" It was Ororo.

"Yeah, 'Ro," Jubilee said, pulling hastily away from Logan and picking up her hairbrush. By the time Ororo opened the door, Logan was sitting innocuously on the end of her bed, and Jubilee was brushing her hair. Ororo shrugged. "Jean and Scott and Remy are making dinner downstairs. It should be ready in a few moments--"

Sure enough, there came Jean's voice through their minds. **Dinner's ready! Come and get it!**

Jubilee turned to Logan. "Are you ready for this?"

He growled. "Do I have a choice?"

She giggled again. "There are too many people living in this place. Even if we avoid meals, everyone's still going to know we're an 'item' by the end of the week, if not sooner."

"Then I'm game if you are."

She kissed his cheek quickly and led the way out of the room.

He sat on her left as she sat down at her usual seat at the huge dinner table. Ororo sat at her right, and Bobby, who usually sat on Jubilee's left, backed off when he heard Logan growl. He meekly took Logan's seat at the far end of the table, beside Remy, who eyed the couple with interest as he ate. The two enjoyed dinner, whispering to each other and talking in low voices as conversation swirled around them.

Xavier sat at the head of the table, watching Logan and Jubilee. She seemed a lot happier, more effervescent, than the day before. Apparently his and Jean's efforts in Jubilee's mind had been helpful. She was much more relaxed than he'd seen in a long time.

When dinner was over, Logan found he was on dish duty again. He didn't mind quite so much when he realized Jubilee was on the list with him. He was a little less than pleased when he found Warren and Betsy were joining them.

They convened in the kitchen and started work on the stack of plates and utensils. Betsy and Jubilee washed, Logan dried, and Warren put away. Jubilee put up with about ten minutes of this, and then put down the soapy sponge she was using. "You know, Betts, Warren, we can handle this ourselves," she said casually, resting her hip against the edge of the counter. "If you've got something else you want to do, you can go ahead…" 

Logan stared in disbelief at the huge pile. "Jubes," he said, "Come on…" he trailed off as she winked again, and he sighed, resigned to whatever his darling had in mind. She ushered Betsy and Warren out of the kitchen, reassuring them that they really didn't need their help, and closed the door firmly behind them.

She turned to Logan, and smiled. "Okay. Now the fun begins," she grinned. She picked up a dirty plate and waved her hand over it, using her power to break the particles of food up, then reducing it to its component atoms with a wave of her hand. 

Logan stared at the clean plate she handed him, dragged a fingertip across its surface to see if it was really clean, then shrugged and put the dish in the cabinet. 'I didn' know ya could do that with yer power," he said. "Ya learned some stuff while ya were gone."

She grinned cheerfully, and continued waving her hand over the plates. In no time at all, they were clean. Logan put the last plate in the cupboard and wiped his hands on the dishtowel and turned.

Jubilee was standing right behind him. He blinked as she fastened her lips to his again, and suddenly realized what she'd done. She'd manipulated the others into leaving so she could get him alone again, the little minx!

He kissed her back, his five-o'clock stubble rubbing her soft cheek, and grasped her hips in his hands. With one smooth move he lifted her up, setting her down on the counter and leaning into her kiss between her parted knees. She giggled, ignoring the knobs on the upper cupboards digging into her back, and kissed him back. She'd slipped on a short, pretty flowered skirt for dinner, her only pair of jeans being too wet to wear. Her knees parted, and she scooted to the edge of the counter as Logan tugged on the elastic waistband of her panties. She wiggled out of them and hiked the skirt up, groaning in passion as Logan's roaming hands caressed her legs…

Warren and Betsy came into the rec room and flopped down on the couch in front of the TV. Warren immediately began to argue with Bobby over the choice of channels, so it was Betsy Remy turned to and asked, "Aren' you suppose' t'be doing dishes, p'tite?"

Betsy shrugged. "Jubilee and Logan said they didn't need help, so we left," she said.

Remy stood thoughtfully for a moment, then handed his pool stick to Bobby. "Remy be right back, mon ami," he said. He went up to the kitchen, stood outside the kitchen door for a moment. There was no water running, but there was a low murmur of voices, and then a female giggle. Remy grinned to himself, counted to ten, and then placed his hand on the knob and turned it, walked in a few steps.

Jubilee was on the counter. Her skirt up around her waist, a slip of lace was in Logan's hand, and there was a great deal of white thigh exposed under the bright kitchen light. Her hands froze on Logan's belt and her eyes widened as she saw Remy standing in the doorway. Logan also froze. He didn't have to see who was in the door; his sense of smell picked up the scent of the cigarette Remy smoked. "Out, Cajun," he growled.

Remy snickered. "Sorry, mon ami," he said. "Remy didn' know you be busy wit' de p'tite in here."

"Out!" Jubilee and Logan spoke at once, and Remy backed out, closing the door behind him. He waited for a few minutes, heard the giggling, the soft voices start again. He grinned, a sly, secret smile to himself, and went back to the rec room.


	6. Crossroads

Chapter 6: Crossroads

Logan switched of the TV. "All them cable channels an' there ain't nothin' on," he grumbled as he sat up and put the remote on his nightstand. He picked up a book and tried to read, but he couldn't focus on the words. Giving up that attempt, he put the book back down and sat for a moment.

What he really wanted to do was go bar hopping. In the two months that Jubilee'd been home, he'd been spending a great deal of time with her, getting to know the polished, sophisticated young woman who had emerged from the energetic little firecracker he remembered. He found himself constantly amazed by the new depths of character he'd never seen in her before. It was like a whole new world opening in front of him, and he'd explored her mental landscape in long conversations with her just as he'd spent his nights (and parts of some days) exploring her physical landscape. She didn't mind, especially the latter!

There had been some stir the first time Bobby caught Logan sneaking out of Jubilee's room early one morning. After that, sensing the cat was out of the bag, he hadn't bothered to hide their relationship any longer. The reactions in the mansion had run the gamut of disapproval, mild anger, and finally acceptance. Jean and Ororo had a great deal to do with the other residents' eventual acceptance; when dissenters (mostly Bobby and Remy) had tried to object, Ororo had gently but firmly shushed them. Scott's dislike had run much deeper. He frowned at Logan, made scathing remarks about his age and Jubilee's taste until Logan had been ready to throttle him. Jubilee had been none too pleased either with his attitude, and Logan still snickered when he remembered her explosion of temper after one particularly intense session in the Danger Room made worse by Scott's refusal to speak to Logan.

"Enough!" Jubilee had stopped Scott on his way out of the Danger Room. "I've had it with this attitude you're putting on about Logan and I. We're not going out of our way to annoy you; so why are you going out of your way to annoy us?"

Scott tried to brush past the young woman, but she didn't back down as she might have in days past when she was younger. That had surprised Scott no end. Logan had ducked into the men's locker room, to find all the others crowded against the door listening.

"Jubilee, you wouldn't understand," Scott tried to brush her off, but she refused to be waved away.

"So make me understand," she challenged, deliberately stepping up to him. "What is it?"

"You're a young girl," Scott fumbled, trying to put into words the exact reason for his disapproval. "You've got a long life ahead of you, and Logan seducing you and making you love him when you should be finding someone your own age to hang around with--"

"Hold it right there," Jubilee ordered, and Scott actually shut up, which made Logan snicker. "First, no one is 'making' me do anything. Second, what makes you think Logan 'seduced' me? We've been pals for a long time. Do you know how much seducing _I_ had to do to get him to see I wasn't a kid anymore? Hell, Scott, I practically had to throw myself at him! If anyone was doing the seducing here, it was me. I'm an adult now, no matter what you still think you see, and I know what I want. Life's too short to waste time trying to decide what I want and what I don't want." 

"Watch your language," Scott snapped, his leash on his temper fraying a bit.

"As if I haven't heard you say worse," Jubilee grinned maliciously at him. "The other day, when you--"

"All right, all right, that's enough!" Scott said, the tips of his ears turning pink, as they did whenever he was embarrassed. "I just thought maybe you should find someone closer to you in age to hang around with."

"Scott, I'm twenty-four and I have a Ph.D. in physics," Jubilee snapped, beginning to lose her temper. "How many other twenty-four year olds do you know can say the same? Most guys my age are still slacking in college and wasting their time. I certainly can't see myself with someone like that. And you are not authorized to make my life's decisions for me. So leave me and Logan alone." And Jubilee had turned and stomped off.

It hadn't been the end of the cold shoulder, by any means, but it was the beginning of the end. Scott had eased up on them a bit, but the end didn't come until one day when Jubilee and Jean were doing dishes in the kitchen. Logan hadn't been part of that chore team, but he remembered Jubilee rushing out of the kitchen red-eyed and angry, and Jean coming out moments later with her lips pressed into a thin line, and marched off to find Scott. She'd slammed down a tight psychic shield around her and Scott's mind, but the indistinct shouting coming from the garage where Scott had been working on his car had given everyone a fairly good idea what was going on. After that, Scott had restricted his disapproval to mild looks whenever he saw them together.

Logan tapped on Jubilee's door before he opened it. "Jubes?" he said. The room was empty.

He checked the rec room. No Jubilee. Same with the library and the sitting room where Jean, Rogue, and Betsy were playing a board game. "Hey, Jean," he said to the redhead, "ya seen Jubilee anywhere?"

"Down in the lab with Hank," Jean said, not even turning around. "Said she wanted to work on her new paper. She's been there probably a good five hours now."

Mystified, he went to the levels of the mansion hidden underground, where Hank had his lab. He tapped on the door before opening it, just in time to hear Jubilee exclaim, "Damn, damn, and double damn!"

He paused in the doorway and leaned against the doorframe, surprised.

Hank's lab had a new occupant. Jubilee was sitting with her heels hooked on the rungs of a high stool, a clear box sitting in front of her. An isolated reaction chamber, some part of his mind identified, but his attention was focused on the swirl of colored plasma particles inside the box. As he watched, Jubilee thrust her hands into the holes cut into the side of the box again, and the swirling colors increased their rapid spinning. She frowned, concentrated, and it looked for a moment like the particles in the box were trying to form some sort of coherent shape. Then it collapsed and started to swirl again, randomly, and Jubilee slammed a fist down on the table and released a string of epithets that made Logan raise an eyebrow. Scott would definitely have something to say about her language if he heard her now.

Hank turned away from his own table at the other end of the room, turning on his own stool. This one was much more substantially built than hers, to accommodate his extra mass and weight. "Now then, Jubilee," he said mildly, taking his glasses off, "Language! Perhaps you have been working too hard over the last few hours, and your powers are exhausted. Logan is here; presumably for you, as I have no pressing business with him at the moment. Maybe if you took the night off, and resumed work tomorrow, you would find that things go your way a bit more smoothly."

Jubilee looked up, saw him in the door, and jumped up, coming over to where he was standing to kiss him. "Hi, Logan," she said cheerfully, her temper gone. "What's up?"

"Wanted ta go out fer the night," he said, "wanted ta let ya know where I was goin'."

'You weren't planning to invite me?" she pouted. Oh, he loved that protruding lower lip; he wanted to…

He cleared his throat, looking at the floor at his feet, trying to clear his head. "I thought maybe ya'd be too busy ta go hang out--"

"With you? Never," she said cheerfully, going back to the table. She did something with a switch at the side of the reaction chamber and the colored plasma of her powers winked out in the box. She noticed him looking. "Like it? I designed it," she said. "Hank was nice enough to adapt some of the Shi'ar technology so I could actually perform experiments with my power, instead of having them fizzle out. It's been a big help." She bounced over to Hank and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Same time tomorrow?"

"I would not miss it for all the tea in China," Hank said amiably, and watched as Logan and Jubilee left the room before turning back to his own work.

"So where did you plan on going?" Jubilee fell in step beside Logan.

He thought. He'd been planning on going to Crossroads, his and Remy's favorite bar, but it was a rough place, and he wasn't sure he wanted to take her there. "Harry's," he said finally.

Jubilee planted her feet as she stepped in front of him, and poked a finger in his chest. "You think I'm not game for Crossroads?" she challenged.

"Huh?" Had she been taking mindreading lessons from Jean?

Jubilee sniffed. "Heard the Cajun say he was going to hit Crossroads tonight," she said. "Heard him ask if you wanted to go. I assume you were going to try to catch up with him there?"

He nodded dumbly.

"So let's go to Crossroads," she said, stopping at her room door. "Let me change, and I'll join you outside. What are we taking, your scoot or the pickup?"

Logan found his voice. Oh, he was going to have fun tonight. He'd show the little minx what a night bar crawling with him was like. "My bike," he said. She grinned and disappeared into her room, and he continued to his own.

He dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, then pulled his new leather jacket and the custom helmet she'd gotten him, and surveyed the effect in the mirror. Not too bad. He slipped out of his room, went out to the garage, and lit a cigarette. Girls always took a while to get dressed.

A moment later the garage door slammed, and he nearly dropped his cigarette. Jubilee was dressed in a pair of black leather pants that stretched tightly over her slim legs and molded to her backside, and a skimpy, _very _low-cut turquoise top that was little more than a bit of sequined material with laces tying it across her tanned back. She wore a form-fitting leather jacket that hugged the curves of her waist and hip, and the helmet she carried was a mirror version of his, just a little smaller to fit over her own head. Her hair hung loose, the raven locks tumbling over her shoulders, and her skillfully applied makeup accented her sensual lips.

She noticed him staring, grinned, and twirled in a circle. "Like it?" she said, giving him an eyeful of her backside. Logan dropped his cigarette and crushed it out, then grabbed her around the waist and pushed her up against his bike. He lowered his head, pursed his lips, and breathed, ever so gently, just a hairsbreadth above the skin over her cleavage, making her shiver as his hot breath caressed her bare skin.

"Logan," she breathed out, almost a groan, and he opened his mouth, bared his teeth, and lowered them to her bare shoulder, nipping her skin, not hard enough to hurt. Just hard enough for her to feel it. His stubble abraded her skin, and he swore to himself silently. He should have shaved.

Jubilee leaned backward over the motorcycle, ignoring the hard chrome that dug into her hips. God, this felt _sooooo_ good…only Logan could make her feel like this. Her face flushed with pleasure, and her hips rose unconsciously toward his.

Logan broke it off with an effort. He wanted to forget about the night, and just spend the evening with Jubilee draped over his bike, panting under him. But he firmly quashed down the impulse. When they got home there'd be plenty of time for that…

His head cleared somewhat as they got out into the cool air. Though the late August night was sticky, the breeze washing over them as they sat on the bike cooled them sufficiently that the jackets became necessary. It was intoxicating, riding in the moonlight with a hellaciously desirable, beautiful girl behind him. He grinned as he felt her shift on the back of the bike, the vibrations of the motor between her legs fanning the flames of the heat between her thighs. 

The smell of her arousal dimmed a bit as they walked into the bar. It was filled with the usual Friday night crowd, some gyrating on the dance floor in front of the ancient jukebox, most sitting at tables around the room drinking, some at the bar. He opened the door for her and she breezed in, immediately catching all eyes in the bar. One guy in the corner eyed her openmouthed, and his female companion…wife, Logan thought, seeing the glint of a gold band on the ring finger of the left hand…kicked him under the table. He smiled to himself as he led Jubilee to an empty table and pulled a chair out for her. She took off her jacket, slung it over the back of the chair, and sat down, as Logan did the same, and one of the bar girls came over.

"What can I get you tonight, Miss Lee?" she said. Logan's jaw dropped to the floor. Betty, that was her name. He'd been in here many times, but it was _Jubes_ the waitress spoke to first?

"Uh, yeah, Betty, I'd like my usual," she said, "And I'm sure you know Logan's preference, he's been here often enough." Jubilee gave the waitress a smile. "What's the special tonight?"

"Uh, we're offering spare ribs, off the grill, and fries," Betty said. "Or there's the clam chowder and salad."

"I'll do the ribs and fries," Jubilee said. "Thanks, Betty." She accepted the glass of ice water the woman handed her and stirred it for a moment with the straw before she sipped it. Then she looked up, and saw Logan's look. "What? I missed dinner. So did you, by the way."

He shook his head. "How many times ya been here? The barkeep knows you better'n they know me!"

She laughed at him. "A few times," she admitted. "Found this place when I followed you here years ago. After my twenty-first birthday I came in here for the first time." She looked around. "Four years and the place hasn't changed. Hey, look, there's Remy!" She waved to a shadowed corner, and Logan saw the Cajun sitting in the booth, engrossed in chatting with a pretty blonde. He smiled, said something to her, and they both slid out of their booth and came up to Logan and Jubilee at their table.

"Remy t'ought you not comin'," he said to Logan. "Change your mind?" He leaned in close to Logan. "Or did de p'tite change your mind for you?"

Logan punched Remy in the arm, firmly but gently, and Remy grinned. He turned to Jubilee. "Glad t'see you join us, p'tite," he said, kissing Jubilee's cheek. "You tell Logan you been here b'fore?"

"No," Jubilee ducked her head, looking a little sheepish. "I didn't. Remy, he tried to take me to Harry's instead of here!"

Remy chuckled, amused, as Logan glared at him. "Hey, don' be too hard on him, p'tite," he said. "Remy try t'do de same t'ing de firs' time I took you bar-crawling." He pulled out a chair for the blonde, and then sat down himself. "Logan, Jubilee, meet Cyndie. Cyndie, meet two o' my closes' frien's, Jubilee an' Logan." They shook hands all around.

Jubilee's ribs arrived at just that moment, and she dug into the meal with enthusiasm, alternating between bites and sips of her beer. Logan gritted his teeth. He was definitely not used to Jubilee drinking beer like he did, though it seemed like she'd done it several times since her twenty-first birthday. She didn't pass out after the second one.

All was quiet until after Betty had taken Jubilee's plate and dropped off another beer. A man sitting at the table next to them, with about six of his buddies, leaned across the intervening space and grabbed Jubilee's arm. "Hey, gel," he said. "Looks like you got a quiet one over there. Want things a little livelier, you come on over here. Me and my buds, we know how to show a lady a good time."

Jubilee smiled and disengaged his hand from her arm. "Thank you, I like my company fine." And she turned back to her conversation.

There was some whispering at his table, then he slid a hand over Jubilee's bare shoulder. "You sure you don't wanna join us over here, baby?"

Jubilee didn't even bother turning around. She grabbed the man's hand where it rested on her shoulder and squeezed. Logan's eyes widened as the man gasped. She kept up the pressure for a couple of minutes and then dropped the man's hand. There was a red imprint of her fingers on his hand. "I said no," she said evenly.

The man whined. "She broke my f***g wrist!" he said, staring surprised at the imprints on his hand.

The other six guys stood up and moved over to their table. Cyndie suddenly got up and vanished into the crowd as they surrounded the three X-Men.

"You broke his wrist, gal," one man grabbed Jubilee's arm. "Better apologise, now, before you regret it!"

"I didn't break it," Jubilee said evenly, tensing ever so slightly. Logan and Remy glanced at each other, each reading the gleam in the other's eye.

The man who had spoken reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair, yanking back, making her yell with surprise and sudden pain. "I said apologise," he snarled at her. Jubilee tensed, and reached back to where he had grabbed her hair. Logan smelled flesh heating up, and then the man yelped and dropped her hair.

Without missing a beat she got up, shoving the chair she'd been sitting on into the front of the man's knees. The guy dropped to the floor like a stone, howling. Two of the others reached for Remy and Logan, and the fight began.

Jubilee felt a grin spread over her face as her fist nailed one guy in the eye, and her knee caught another man in the crotch. So this was what bar-crawling with Logan was like. She could understand now why he came here whenever he was looking for a fight. This was fun. Out the corner of her eye she saw a man grab Logan from behind as another punched him in the stomach. Logan doubled over with a grunt, and the man took the opportunity to kick him in the middle. Then Logan uncurled from the floor with all the speed of a striking snake, and swept the man's legs out from under him with a sweep of his own leg. The man crashed to the floor, followed soon after by his friend, and didn't move.

Her attention was only half on what she was doing, so it came as a surprise as a fist came from somewhere off to the side and connected with her eye. She yelled in surprise and pain, and her brief moment off guard was enough. The man who'd started it all shoved her backward over the table, and draped himself over her with a grunt. His hand fumbled with the button on her pants.

A sudden flashback froze her momentarily. Bastion, on top of her, laughing as she screamed in pain…she reacted almost on instinct.

Logan was just finishing off his third opponent, and Remy had punched out the fifth man when a flash of light came from the other table. Jubilee, pinned under the man's weight and trying to twist her hips away from his drunken efforts to remove her clothes, had unleashed her power. The man flew backward, struck another table nearby, and fell to the floor. He didn't move after that.

Logan took her arm, pulling her off the table. "Ya okay, Jubes?" he said as the bouncers started dragging the unconscious bodies out of the bar. Remy dampened a cloth napkin in her water glass and handed it to her, and she gratefully held it to her stinging eye. Logan let her hold it there for a minute, and then pulled it gingerly away from her eye. "No, Jubes, lemme see," he said. He sucked in a breath. "C'mon. Let's getcha home."


	7. Argument

Chapter 7: Argument

He insisted that she ride home in Remy's pickup, and when they got back to the mansion around one in the morning, he dragged her off to the kitchen despite her protests. Remy got a kitchen towel as Logan packed a bag with ice, and then he fussed about getting it in place over her eye. "Jubes, stop touchin' it," he said exasperated as she took the makeshift icepak off her eyes and felt the swelling flesh under her it.

She kept the ice on her eye till it was almost numb with the cold, and Logan was emptying the melted ice from the bag when the kitchen door opened and Jean came in. "Jubilee!" Jean exclaimed, shocked, and Jubilee thought that it must really look bad if Jean was that upset. She crouched beside Jubilee's chair, taking the younger woman's chin in her hand and turning her face toward the light to see better. "My God, you're going to be sore for a week! What happened?"

"Bar brawl," Jubilee grinned unrepentantly. "Logan and I went bar crawling. We met Remy at Crossroads and had a couple of drinks. Some guy wanted me to sit on his lap instead of our table, and took exception to my choice of company."

Jean stood up and turned on Logan. "What the hell were you thinking, taking Jubilee to Crossroads? That place is too rough for a young woman. Jubilee isn't like one of the girls you guys usually go out with! What were you thinking?"

Ororo and Scott walked in on the tail end of her words, and Logan sighed as Scott straightened up. He was in for it now.

"What were you two thinking, taking Jubilee to Crossroads?" Scott swelled with indignation. He knew he'd been right about Logan being too old for Jubilee, but both Ororo and Jean had told him firmly that it wasn't any of his business, and he needed to leave them alone. Jean in particular had gotten vehement in her reaction to his opinion, and had told him so loudly and at length one night when he was in the garage working on his car. His ears still burned with embarrassment at the memory of that particular conversation. Well, hopefully she'd see now that he was right about Logan and Jubilee's relationship, and stop encouraging Jubilee's hanging out with Logan. "She's not like one of your whores, Logan, she's one of us, and she's still young! You've got no right dragging her off to Crossroads! Didn't you get into a fight there a few months ago that broke your rib?" When Logan nodded, Scott went on. "Well, you may heal fast, but Jubilee can't! She's lucky she didn't get hurt worse than a black eye! What if she'd broken something, or worse, gotten stabbed, or shot, or seriously hurt? Did you even think about that before you took her there? I'll bet not! That's just like you, Logan, you never think! Jubilee, if you have any sense whatsoever, you'll think twice about getting involved with him, because he's going to get you killed!" Scott crossed his arms, glowering in anger, and Jean stood beside him wearing a matching expression.

Ororo laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Scott, calm down," she said. "But he did have a point, Jubilee. Crossroads is no place for a child like you. Logan, you should have thought about Jubilee before you chose the place to visit tonight. Harry's would have done just as well, with less potential for danger. You should think next time before dragging her into a dangerous place such as that again—"

Jubilee jumped up. "Stop talking about me like I'm not here, okay?" she snapped, angry. "_I_ got Logan to drag me out there tonight. He didn't make me do anything, and stop talking about what could have happened, because it didn't! I'm twenty-four, I can handle myself! And stop calling me a child, because I sure as hell am _not_ a child anymore!"

"Jubilee, we're not saying you are--" Jean tried to placate the angry girl, but she refused to be mollified.

"Really? You aren't? 'Cause that's what it sounds like from here!" Jubilee paced the kitchen floor angrily. "Listen, this isn't the first time I've been to Crossroads. I followed Logan there some years ago, when I was here for a visit. But I was too young to go in. Soon after my twenty-first birthday, When I came home for a visit and Logan was off somewhere, I went there for the first time. In case you all want to know, I got into a fight then, too, I just didn't get hurt. Since that first time, I've gone back many times, sometimes by myself, and Remy took me a couple of times too."

There was silence for a moment, and then Scott exploded. "Remy? _You_ took her there? Why in the name of God didn't you have more sense? It's not a place for a young girl! Have both of you taken leave of your senses--"

"ENOUGH!" Jubilee yelled, getting up. "Isn't anyone listening to me? _I went there on my own. I dragged Remy there._ It was my decision, and my mistake. So will you all lay off both of them?" Silence for another minute, and then the angry words broke out again, mostly directed at Logan and Remy. Jubilee stood there for one startled second, then whirled and ran up to her room.

She lay on her bed, angry tears seeping from her eyes. It wasn't fair! She was twenty-four, and she'd made the decision. If anyone should be scolding anyone, it should be them scolding her for getting hurt, not for Logan and Remy taking her there. It wasn't as if they'd held a gun to her head and _made_ her go to the bar, for goodness sake! It was her choice!

She heard the sound of footsteps coming up the steps, but they didn't pass her door. It was Remy, then. Scott and Jean had a larger suite on the third floor, and Remy's room was only three doors down from the stairs, so he wouldn't pass her door to get to his room. Only Logan would have to, and she thought he'd come up to her room when Scott got done yelling at him.

She was just drowsing off when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She sat up in bed, noting the clock on her bedside table said two o'clock. The footsteps paused at her door, then moved off further down the hall. She sprang out of bed and wrapped a robe around her nude body, then opened her own door and slipped out. Logan's door was just closing. She crept down the hall and slipped in.

Logan was undressing. She caught her breath as the rush of desire she'd been holding in all night long burst into flame again, and she walked up to him, letting her robe fall open so she could press her warm body against his back. "Sheesh. I thought Scott would never stop yelling at you," she said, resting her unbruised cheek against his back. "Little uptight, isn't he?"

But Logan didn't respond with some sarcastic remark about Scott's 'responsible leader' attitude as she expected. Instead, he placed his hands on top of hers where she had wrapped then around his chest, held them for a second, then disengaged her hands from his body, gently pushing her away. She stared at him, looking puzzled. "'S been a long evenin', Jubilee," he said, unbuttoning his shirt. "I think ya should go ta bed."

She tried to cover her confusion with a little laugh as she approached him again. "I thought so too, that's why I came," she said, dropping her robe on the floor and slipping between the sheets of his bed. Logan bent and picked up her robe, holding it out to her.

Hurt showed in her eyes as she got out and wrapped herself in her robe again. "You want me to sleep in my room," she said evenly.

Logan turned and looked out the window at the lawn. "Jubes," he started, then hesitated. She waited expectantly, and he sighed and sat down, still not looking at her. "Jubilee, Scott had a point this evening. My kinda life ain't fit fer somebody like you. Yer smart, beautiful, young, sexy, an' ya deserve more'n an' ol' man wit' no past an' nothin' ta offer ya. Ya should fin' some professor at one o' th' colleges ya visit, settle down wit him and have a coupla kids in a normal house with a white picket fence an' a dog or somethin' like that. Not chasin' bad guys and exhaustin' yerself an' getting' hurt an' maybe someday getting' killed. Or runnin' through seedy, trashy two-bit bars wit' me getting' hurt cause I'm too slow or too stupid ta protect ya. Ya deserve more'n that."

Jubilee stared at him, hurt clouding her eyes. "Logan, what makes you think I want those things?" she said. "What gave you the impression that I wanted to be normal? That I wanted a normal life? I hate kids," and he almost smiled at that because he'd heard her say, more than a few times, that she loved the younger students at the Massachusetts Academy. "If I never have kids, that's alright by me. I don't want them, I don't want a normal house with a normal little fence and a normal dog. Logan, since I first ran into you guys all I wanted was to be one of you. You know why I always ended up running off after you? Because everyone else was always too busy to spend time with me. I mean, there was always the Professor, but he was, like, majorly boring to a fourteen year old, anyway. You were all the things I wasn't; strong, brave, rough, caring, compassionate, nice…" 

Logan snorted at that Nice? Many of his personal enemies wouldn't say the same.

"…and I loved you. At first, like a father, and then later like a real tough older brother. I'm not sure when I started to look at you as a lover, but I did, and you fulfilled every dream I ever had the first time we made love on the edge of the lake a few months ago. Normal? I don't want normal, Logan, I really don't. All I want is you." She kissed his cheek, and he heard a catch in her voice and smelled salty tears as she rubbed her cheek against his. "And if dying tomorrow or facing some life-threatening injury in a week means I'll have you for that long, I'm willing to take that chance. The danger makes life all that much sweeter."

Logan's voice was rough as he spoke, still not looking at her. "But I'm not willin' ta drag ya into that danger," he said. "Jubes...Jubilee, everyone I ever loved died on me. I don't wanna see that happen ta you. I don't know how long I been on this earth, an I don't know how much longer I'm gonna hold back the agin' process, but I know I don't wanna be bringin' flowers ta yer grave before yer old an' gray."

She drew away from him, the tears falling faster now, tears of anger and hurt. "I decide what I want and don't want, Logan," she whispered. "Not Scott, not Jean, and definitely not you. I want you."

"I…I don't," Logan forced out through gritted teeth. She stood for one shocked second, and he knew her body was going cold all over with anger. She turned with a strangled, choked sob, grabbed the doorknob and yanked it, the door flying into the wall as she fled.

He got up, closed the door numbly, feeling as though his heart had been ripped out. He couldn't stand to see her hurt like that, and knowing he was the cause. He paused, irresolute, having half a mind to run after her, hug her close, and apologise for what he'd just said. But something Scott had said kept running through his head. "If you have any sense, Logan, you'll break it off with her before her obsession with you gets to the point where she stops looking at other men. You know she deserves more than you can give her. Do you want her to spend the rest of her life with you and hating the bridges she burned because she thought she was in love with you?"

No he didn't. He didn't want to look into her eyes someday and see loathing there because she'd been too young to know what love was, had mistaken infatuation for love, and devoted herself to him before she'd explored other options. He didn't want to see longing and regret in those blue eyes for what she'd lost because she couldn't see it and he had been too hungry for someone to love to let her go. Or to see her lying ashen-faced and alive only because of life support, from some freak accident that had happened to her while out on a mission with the X-Men. If she was destined to die at one of his enemies' hands (as so many of his other loves had), and if by hurting her heart now with rejection he could prevent that, then he was willing to do it if it meant she would be safe.

He kicked off his boots and sat on the edge of the bed, balling his shirt in his fists and holding it up to his face. For the first time in a long time, he cried. He felt as though he'd just ripped out his own heart. He kept telling himself it was for the best, it was for her own good.

But then why did he feel so bad?

** *

Jubilee flung herself onto her bed, tears filling her blue eyes. She loved him, but he didn't love her. He'd never have said the things to her that he had if he did. She buried her face in the pillow, muffling her scream of anguish. She felt a hole open up under her heart, and she understood what a broken heart felt like.

She lay for a long time, sobbing, and then sighed and got up. With the stress she'd been through tonight, and the fact that Logan's presence wouldn't be there to drive away the nightmares, she was going to have some horrific ones that night. Only one thing would drive them away; she was going to get toasted. The guys had hidden a small refrigerator in the back of the old wine cellar, and kept it regularly stocked with beer. It would almost certainly be full, as she'd seen Bobby and Hank carrying in full paper bags from the local liquor store the other day. 

She got up, slipped into underclothes and a set of fuzzy blue pajamas, and slipped out of her room. Down the hall, Logan's light had gone out. She wondered how he could sleep.

Down the stairs, now, and into the kitchen. Down the kitchen stairs, into the cellar, where old dusty bottles of wine sat on shelves. She headed to the back, where, behind the last rack, the refrigerator was hidden. She opened it, shivering a little in the chill coming from the open door, and nodded. It was indeed full. She chose a bottle at random, popped it open with the bottle opener hanging from a magnet on the fridge door, and shut the door. She sat down on the floor beside the last wine rack, intent on her task.

"What you doin', chere?" said a voice behind her some time later, and she jumped half a foot in the air and squealed in shock. Remy stood behind her, his face barely illuminated by the light coming from the lit cigarette in his mouth.

She sat back down carefully, since the room seemed to be moving in unexpected ways since her startled move. "Gettin' drunk," she finally got out.

"Dis Remy can see," he said as he came to sit on the floor beside her. "Remy wan' know why de p'tite need to get drunk."

It seemed so simple to her. "So da dreams don' git me," she slurred. "Logan don't wanna sleep wi' me no more, an' 'thout him to chase da dreams 'way, I doan think I c'n handle 'em."

Remy digested this in silence. "Logan say he don' wanna sleep wit' you no more?" he said, puzzled. 

"Yep." Jubilee nodded vigorously, then stopped as what was left of her brain sloshed noisily in her skull. "Said he don' love me no more." Her eyes filled with tears. "He don' wan' me no more, Remy. How'm I gonna live 'thout him?" She began to cry, noisily, as the now-empty bottle dropped to the floor with a clatter.

Remy crushed out his cigarette on the cement floor and took the sobbing young woman in his arms, pulling her on his lap as though she were fourteen and he was playing Santa. She buried her face in his shirt and cried and cried, as though her heart were broken.

Remy sighed. Logan had gone very quiet in the kitchen after Scott had told him that if he loved Jubilee as much as he said he did, then he should let her go and let her find another man. Remy had rolled his eyes. Jubilee loved Logan like Scott loved Jean; it had only taken a week for Remy to see that. No matter how Logan tried to let her go and push her away, she was going to keep coming back simply because it was meant to be. Why fight fate, he reasoned, when all you were going to do was make yourself suffer? Apparently, though, Logan had listened to Scott's diatribe, and Jubes was now down here crying her eyes out. He was going to bet that tomorrow Logan was going to be hitting the bars again, picking fights with everyone he could find just to distract himself from the pain of losing Jubilee. Remy sighed. Sometimes Scott really needed to mind his own business.


	8. Remy

Chapter 8: Remy

Conversation was subdued the next morning when Logan showed up in the kitchen minus Jubilee. The others had gotten so used to seeing her with him that it was actually something of a shock, and he could see the question in half their eyes. Bobby, in particular, was eyeing him up. When he tried to approach him, though, Logan snarled wordlessly and Bobby took the hint. Logan grabbed a cup of coffee and vanished.

Jubilee came down for her coffee a little later, accompanied by Remy. Surprise looks went flying around the table when he pulled out her chair for her and poured her a cup of coffee. She drank it, oblivious to the stares, and sorted through the pile of mail. There were a few envelopes for her, mostly bills, but there was one pink envelope she pulled out of the pile and ripped open. "Oh, jeez," she groaned. "Professor Cohen's wedding. I'd forgotten about it."

"Huh?" Remy, sitting at the table across from her, raised his eyebrows.

"Professor Matthew Cohen's a teacher at Columbia University. The last time I saw him he'd just gotten engaged and was planning to get married. Here's the invitation." She read it, and sighed. "I'll have to go get a dress, I suppose. Remy, you up to a shopping trip with me?"

"Sure, p'tite," Remy said amiably.

"It's a formal wedding; Betsy, do I need to get a long gown or a short one?"

Betsy sat back, thinking as she tried to avoid Jean's surprised look. Usually it was Jean Jubilee asked questions of; and in her absence, Ororo. Jubilee must really be upset if she wasn't speaking to either of them.

"Is it a morning, afternoon, or evening wedding?" she said. Jubilee checked the invitation. "The ceremony's supposed to be at six, and the reception at eight," she said. "That's evening, right?"

Betsy nodded. "An evening formal gown, then, Jubilee," she said. "And it's a fall wedding, so you'll want to get a fall color. Try a yellow, or a beige. Or a red. I think red would look better, given your complexion."

Jubilee said cheerfully, "Thanks. I figured you'd know. When do you want to leave, Remy?"

"Anytime y'wan', p'tite," he said.

She jumped up. "It's almost eleven now. How about around one?"

"Sure, p'tite," he said. She got up and left the room, her coffee cup still clutched in her hand.

As soon as she left, Jean leaned in. "What's going on, Remy? She's not talking to me, and Logan already went through here looking like he'd lost his best friend…" Her voice trailed off as she realized what she'd just said.

"'S far's he's concerned, he did," Remy growled. "Your blasted Scott an' his assumptions. An' you an' 'Ro too. Yer all assumin' Logan drag a little girl off to some place she shouldn't'a been. None o' you listen to her when de p'tite say she gone dere by herself. None o' you t'ought 'bout de fac' dat de p'tite isn't so little anymore. She got a right to go where she want to, an' do whatever she want to. She's young, but not so young dat you c'n tell her what to do an' not have her git upset 'bout it." He got up and put his coffee cup in the sink. "Logan hurt de p'tite las' night when he say he don' love her. Remy fin' Jubilee drinking in de wine cellar las' night tryin' to drown her sorrow in a bottle. It not healthy for her to do dat, so until Logan come to his senses, Remy gon' take care of her." He turned and left the kitchen. Jean stood there for a moment, staring openmouthed, and then ran after him and caught him in the hall.

"She was drinking last night?" Jean bit her lip. They hadn't meant to hurt either Logan or Jubilee. She, Ororo and Scott just wanted him to realize there were places he could go that Jubilee couldn't, and shouldn't, go.

"Yeah, well, all de stuff you say to Logan should'a been said to Jubilee too. Crossroads was her idea, not his. Logan wan' to go to Harry's. Jubilee wan' to go to Crossroads. Logan jus' got dragged along. You know how stubborn she is." Gambit stopped. "Scott said las' night dat if Logan have any sense he tell Jubes to go fin' someone else, 'cause he can' give her what she deserve. So for de firs' time las' night Logan listen to Scott, an' might have ruined Jubes's life in de process. She have dreams again las' night, Jean, bad dreams. All Remy could do was hol' her an' try to keep her from hurtin' herself. She keep crying for Logan all las' night." He took a deep breath, and Jean saw the weary look in his eyes. "Logan tell me once, las' mont' when we was drinkin', dat she been t'rough some bad stuff, but Remy never guess it was dis bad. I never wan' to hear Jubilee cry like dat again. If Logan don' come to his senses soon, I goin' to beat some sense into him myself." And he walked off, leaving Jean looking after him with a growing sense of just what kind of damage she, Ororo, and Scott had done the previous evening.

She returned to the kitchen, silently put her cup in the sink and sent psychic tendrils out looking for Logan. He wasn't in the mansion. She sent her senses out to the grounds, then when she couldn't find him, she went out to the garage. As soon as she looked into the side where Remy and Logan and Scott kept their motorcycles, she knew he was gone.

Well, he would come back, and then they could talk. As she walked back to the mansion, however, she remembered his penchant for running off whenever he needed to think. Jean ran up to his room and took a quick look under his bed. His worn old traveling bag was gone.

"Damn," she moaned. "Logan, I hope you get back soon."

***

Remy didn't normally enjoy shopping with the girls, though he'd gone sometimes when Rogue wanted him to, just to spend some time in her company. She, however, had taken some time away from the X-Men after having touched one of the Dark Riders during a mission they'd had just before Jubilee had come back, and he missed her company. He decided to keep Jubilee company, and so agreed to go shopping with her.

Shopping with Jubilee, he found out quite quickly, was not like shopping with Jean or Rogue. Jubilee didn't spend a whole lot of time looking through stuff she wasn't going to buy. She headed directly for the dress department in the department store and went through the racks like a whirlwind, picking out two dresses, one in a buttercup color, and one in a bright red. Then she headed straight into the dressing room. He stood out there, waiting, until she finally came out, carrying both dresses. She stopped when she saw the look on his face. "What?" she said.

"You not goin' t'let Remy see?" he said. "Rogue always come out of de dressing room in whatever she want to buy so I can see what she look like in de outfit."

She blinked. "I didn't think you'd want to waste time like that."

Remy leaned over her and kissed her cheek. "Never a waste, p'tite, not when it comes to a pretty woman."

She grinned, not as widely as she usually did, but it was better than nothing. "Will you hold my purse, then?" she said. He took the bag she handed to him, and sat down in a chair by the door.

She came out shortly wearing the yellow dress, and he looked at her for a long moment. He'd hardly ever seen her in a dress; as a teenager she'd been more into hip hugging jeans in bright, eye-blinding colors. He'd liked the new clothes she had now; sensible, comfortable clothes that matched her personality. 

"Well, what do you think?" Jubilee twirled in place.

Remy ruffled his hair. "De dress fine, chere, but Remy t'ink maybe de color not de bes'. Yellow don' look so good on you all a sudden."

She nodded. "I like the cut of the dress, but the color isn't exactly flattering," she admitted. "Let me put on the red one, and see what you think." She disappeared back into the dressing room, and came out several minutes later wearing a dress in a deep burgundy that nearly made Remy's heart stop.

It was a strapless floor-length creation made of rich wine-colored velvet. The bodice fit Jubilee's body like a glove, and displayed her tiny waist to perfection before sweeping out into a full skirt that brushed the ground when she moved. Delicate silver embroidery adorned the top of the dress, and a rhinestone ornament accented the vee between her breasts. 

_Breathe, damn you, breathe!_ He scolded himself. _Don't matter if dey havin' an argument right now, Jubes is Logan's girl. _He started breathing again with an effort, and said, "Jubilee, dat's perfect."

She frowned, went to look in a nearby mirror. "You think so?" she wrinkled her nose. "I thought it came down too low right here and showed too much cleavage."

_Chere, dere's never enough cleavage for a guy when it come to a pretty woman like you._ "No," he shook his head, "Dat's de dress you should get."

She threw up her hands. "Okay." She retreated back into the dressing room and soon came out wearing her regular clothes and carrying the dress.

The woman at the register took a look at her, at the dress, then at Remy, and blinked when she saw Remy's red pupils on black irises. She stopped in mid-sentence and became positively rude. Jubilee bit her tongue and kept her temper as she paid for her dress and they left the dress department.

Remy grinned at her. "I'm used to it, chere," he said as they walked through the store. "De eyes always stop people short. Some people it don't bot'er; some people it do." They were almost out of the store when he stopped. "Do you need shoes for dat?" he asked.

Jubilee smacked her forehead. "Yes I do," she said. "I almost forgot." He turned and led her off down an aisle, which opened out into the shoe section. As she was about to walk in, he stopped. "P'tite, you t'ink your frien's goin' to min' if you bring a frien'?"

Jubilee shook her head. "No, Professor Cohen said I'd be welcome to bring a date. But Logan won't go; he hates stuff like this where he has to get dressed up…even if we were still going out," she said, that sad look coming back into her eyes.

"Would you min' if Remy come?"

She looked at him. "Would you mind?"

"'Course not, p'tite," he said. "Remy goin' t'be de center o' everyone's attention when he walk in wit' de pretties' girl dere on his arm. Wouldn' miss dat for de worl'." He grinned. "But Remy t'ink maybe you don' wan' go wit' someone dress only in jeans. So Remy goin' to buy a suit. I know girls and shoes, Rogue take forever. So I meet you back here in, say, a half hour?"

Jubilee nodded. "Okay." She watched him saunter off, thinking how different he was from Logan. Logan would have been thoroughly bored with the whole thing; he'd probably never even had come. She'd be trailing after Jean and Storm as they went in and out of all the shops in the mall, looking at everything.

She went over to the dress shoe section and looked at the assortment of styles there. A few caught her eye, and she picked up the display shoe and looked around for a salesperson. There were two women sitting by the sneakers, talking, and at first she thought that they were customers. Then one shifted position and she saw a nametag on her, and she walked over. "Excuse me," she said, "Do you have these in a six?"

Then she saw the other woman, and her heart sank. It was the woman from the dress department.

The shoe saleswoman, a skinny older woman, maybe forty, with thinning red hair, said "No, I'm sorry, we don't, that pair on display is the last pair we have."

Jubilee held up the second shoe, which had a _new item!_ sticker on it. "How about this one?"

The woman didn't even look at it, just mumbled no. Jubilee rolled her eyes and returned the shoes to the display shelf, miffed and ready to walk out.

There was a click of heels in the aisle, and Jubilee turned, to see a young woman, about her age, walk in. She was Asian, too. There was a large box balanced on her shoulder. 

The girl dropped the box on the floor. "Hey, Anne," she said to the other shoe saleswoman. "Chris delivered these to Men's by mistake."

The older woman sighed. "Take 'em back there, I'll put them away when I got time."

Just then the girl spotted Jubilee. She looked back at her co-worker and raised an eyebrow. The woman shook her head. The girl turned toward Jubilee and started to walk over, but the dress woman caught her arm and said something. Jubilee didn't miss the sidelong glance the two older women were giving her, and sighed.

The girl said something in a low voice. The other two women said something back. She shrugged, and started to walk over to Jubilee.

"I saw those dresses when they came in upstairs," she said to Jubilee, indicating the velvet dress in its clear protective plastic. "They're beautiful. Are you trying to find shoes to match?" her voice was warm, friendly, and Jubilee smiled back at her. 

"Yes. Do you have this," she indicated the shoe she'd picked up first, "Or this," and she pointed to the other choice, "in a six?"

The girl picked up the first shoe. "This one, unfortunately, no," she said. "We always put the small size out, and this one's an eight. The six is probably gone. The other one I'll check for you." She vanished into the back room, ignoring the poisonous glare her co-worker was giving her, and came out in short order holding two shoeboxes. "This one runs small; I usually wear a five, and the five-and-a-half fit me, so I brought the six and the six and a half for you. Here," and she handed a pair of try-on nylons to Jubilee. She sat down on the floor and started to unwrap them for her, which surprised Jubilee. She'd never had such a warm, personable saleswoman wait on her before.

She slipped the six on and grimaced. The salesgirl was right; it was cut small. She slipped her foot into the six-and-a-half the girl offered her, and nodded. It felt better. She put the other one on, and took a few steps.

The girl watched her walk over to the mirror and look at the shoes. "What's the occasion?" she asked.

"I've got a formal wedding to go to," Jubilee said. "It's an evening wedding, upstate. The ceremony's at six, and the reception's for eight."

The girl blinked. "That's a long time to be standing in those," she said. "Your feet are going to hurt by the end of the evening. Have you considered getting a lower heel?"

Jubilee looked startled. "No, I didn't see any out there in the same color," she said.

The girl got up and disappeared in the back. Jubilee sat down, taking off the shoes, and waited. The girl soon reappeared, holding three more boxes. She sat down, opened the first one, and Jubilee saw a pair of red leather pumps. "What do you think?" the salesgirl said.

Jubilee shook her head. "I didn't think so," she said, closing the box. "How about these?"

Jubilee looked with interest at the strappy sandals in the box. "They're pretty," she said, taking one out. 

"The heel's high, three inches," the girl said, "But because the heel's thicker, it won't tire your arch muscles out as much." Jubilee slipped them on and walked to the mirror. These were much more comfortable, and she blinked. The girl knew what she was talking about.

She returned to her seat, and took them off. "I like these," she said. The girl smiled, and started to package up the other shoes. Jubilee stopped her. "What's in the third box?" she asked.

The girl said, "These are the shoes that were originally designed for the dress you have. It's the last pair we have, but they're a five-and-a half. I wasn't sure they were going to fit you, but they felt kinda big on me."

"Can I see?" Jubilee said. The girl opened the box.

Jubilee picked them up. They were a pair of plain velvet pumps, with heels about an inch and a half. The girl reached into the box and pulled out a little plastic package, opened it, and took out a tiny shoe clip that had the same rhinestone pattern that decorated the dress. Jubilee slipped them on. To her surprise, they fit. "They fit!" she said to the girl. "But they're a little tight on the side."

"They're leather underneath, so they'll stretch," the girl said. "How long do you have until the wedding?" 

"A few weeks," Jubilee said. "If I wore them around the house, do you think they'll…"

The girl shook her head. "They will, but not enough." She felt the side of the shoe. "Will you wait here?" She vanished into the back again. 

When she came back out she was holding what Jubilee recognized as a shoe stretcher. She slipped it into Jubilee's shoe and began to open it, stretching the shoe around the sides. When she finished, Jubilee put them on. They felt like a glove. She returned to her chair and grinned. "I'll take these," she said.

She was stacking the rejected shoes and stretching the other shoe for Jubilee when Remy came in, carrying a suit bag over his shoulder, and sat down beside Jubilee. "Got de suit," he said. "And Jubes, it has a vest dat match your dress." He unzipped the bag and Jubilee peeked inside. 

"Wow!" Jubilee's eyes sparkled. "You're going to look good!"

"Not better dan you, p'tite," he said.

The sales girl smiled at Jubilee. "You two make a lovely couple," she said.

"Couple? Oh, no, he's a friend," Jubilee said, blushing. "Remy, this nice girl's helped me find shoes. She's.." she looked closely at the nametag.

"Elise," the girl said. "Lovely to meet you, Monsieur."

Gambit took the hand she held out to him to shake and kissed it, "Lovely name for a lovely girl," he said. "Are you French?"

The girl blushed. "Oh, no," she said. "I'm a dancer with the New York City Ballet. My grandmother was Cajun; I recognized your accent because she talked like that." She indicated the shoe displays. "This is a part time job for me."

"You're a dancer?" Remy asked. The girl nodded. "Such a lovely art, ballet," Remy said, watching Jubilee slip her feet back into the shoes. "What's your name? Remy might look for your name when I go."

"You're a patron of the ballet?" the girl said interestedly, and Jubilee hid a smile behind her hand. Remy would rather go bar-hopping than to a ballet; but throw a pretty girl in the mix and he'd go anywhere for her.

"Occasionally," Remy said.

"Elise," she said. "Elise Maron. We're rehearsing Don Quixote right now; it's going to open in a month. I have invitations for opening night, but no one to give them to. Would you like one?"

"Sure," Remy said. 

She vanished into the back room with the rejected shoes, and came back with a prettily printed invitation and a ticket. She handed these to Remy as she rang up Jubilee's shoes, and smiled as she bagged them and they left.

Jubilee burst into laughter as they went out to the parking lot. "Laying it on there pretty thick, weren't you?" she chided him, punching his arm.

Remy grinned. "She a pretty _mademoiselle,_" he said, shrugging, "Remy couldn' help it. Maybe we go out afterward, neh?" He grinned wolfishly.

Jubilee snickered. "Pick up a girl anywhere, huh?" she laughed as he swiped at her, and ran for the car as he chased her. She was still giggling as they drove home.


	9. Sabretooth

Chapter 9: Sabretooth

"Jubilee." Jean tapped on the closed door.

There was no answer.

"Jubilee!"

Still no answer.

Jean sighed. Since that night several weeks ago when She and Scott had caught Remy, Jubilee, and Logan sneaking back in from Crossroads, Jubilee hadn't spoken a word to her, Scott, or Ororo. She'd hung out with Remy and Bobby, of all people. Both men were plainly interested in her, but she'd had her heart full of only one man; Logan.

Of whom there had been no sign. Jubilee had obviously checked under his bed just as Jean had, and discovered the same thing; his traveling bag was gone. Jean had heard her stomping off down the hall to her room, muttering something about how she was going to yell at him when he got back. Jean was relieved when she made no move to go haring off after him. Instead she'd buried herself down in the lab with Hank, and had published another paper in some obscure scientific journal. When Scott had tried to question her about it, in hopes of breaking down the wall she'd put up between the three of them and herself, he'd been rebuffed with a cold stare and continued silence. After weeks of this, Jean was ready to do just about anything to break that silence. Hence, she was here, making a last-ditch effort to speak to the girl before she and Remy departed on the long three-hour trip upstate to her colleague's wedding.

"Jubilee!" another knock, this time a more forceful one. Jean sighed, closed her eyes, and reached out a mental thread to the younger woman. **Jubilee, you can't keep ignoring me like this. Jubilee, can you hear me?**

***

Jubilee pulled the side of her bangs into an elegant French twist and pinned it. Then she picked up the flowered comb and carefully set it into the twist, grimacing. She could hear Jean fine; she just didn't choose to answer it. She heard footsteps coming down the hall…Scott. He had been coming to her room at odd times over the last couple of weeks too, doing the same thing Jean was doing; knocking, calling, and waiting for an answer. The last time he'd done that, he'd also called through the door that he wasn't going to leave until he spoke to her. She'd smiled to herself, opened her window quietly, and slipped out onto the tree limb she'd used to climb out of her room when she was younger. Remy saw her shimmying down the tree, and gave her a puzzled look. "Scott," she'd said, and he'd nodded, and guided her into the back door.

He had refused to tell her what had been said in the kitchen after she'd left that night. No matter how she bugged him, pestered him, and badgered him, he refused to say a word. "Lot o' what was said was said to Logan, p'tite," he'd said seriously when she'd gotten through swearing and cussing at him. "He should tell you if he wants to, not me." But Logan hadn't been around to ask.

The only thing that kept her from going off to find him when his absence had extended past the first week was a short Email he'd sent her. _I'm fine. Got to think about things. Logan._ After that, he'd sent another one every few days, letting her know he was fine. It was the same every time…except the last one he'd sent her, just this morning. _Talk to you when I get back. Am starting out now. Love, Logan._

That single word 'love' had sent her into ecstasies. He never said that unless he really meant it. Maybe he'd changed his mind! She had started to get ready for the trip and the wedding with a lighter heart.

Now Scott and Jean were out there trying to ruin it. She pressed her lips into a thin line as she set the other comb into her hair. Whatever they'd said that had made him run off like that without saying goodbye to her must have been bad, because he'd never left without telling her where he was going. Never. Even when she'd been at the Massachusetts Academy he'd always told her where he was going and told her goodbye. No matter how mad he got at her he'd always said goodbye.

She looked at herself critically in the mirror as Jean and Scott got suspiciously quiet out there in the hall. The combs had tiny crimson roses and bright green leaves that showed of nicely against her hair, which she'd gone to the trouble of curling earlier that morning. She patted her clear complexion with a bit of powder, trying to hide the tiny freckle she'd acquired that summer tanning by the pool. It would fade as the winter went on; but for now, it was a tiny brown dot on her cheek.

Now for the rest of the makeup. Mascara on her lashes, dark eyeliner on her upper lid, and a tiny dot of the stuff on the outer corner of each eye. She'd read that it would make her almond-shaped eyes look bigger. To her surprise, it had worked. Now she used it all the time. She applied a coat of lipstick in a color called velvet wine; it was a beautiful color. It made her face look like porcelain and her lips full and sensuous. She tucked the lipstick into her tiny red velvet purse and was slipping on her black dress jacket when the door flew open. She whirled.

Jean and Scott had opened her door. She growled. "Get out," she snapped.

Jean froze. This lovely young woman with flashing blue eyes and beautiful gown was their Jubilee? On an everyday basis, except for the woman's curves and taller stature, she looked so much like the fourteen-year old they remembered that it was hard to see the grown woman she'd become. In the months that she'd been home, they'd slipped back into the old habit of talking to her as they used to… "Jubilee, could you take this to the kitchen, please, dear?" "Jubilee, could you run upstairs and ask Bobby to come down here, please?" It was stuff they wouldn't have said to Storm, or any of the older residents of the mansion that they considered an adult. So why had they been doing it to her? She certainly was an adult. Jan shook her head as she stared at Jubilee. They had no right telling her, or Logan, what to do.

Scott froze in the door, similar thoughts running through his head. They left him shaking his head bemusedly, and what he planned to say went out the window. "Jubilee," he started, then stopped. "Uh, what I want to say is…well…Jubilee, I'm sorry. We didn't have a right to stick our noses into your business that night. If you want to go to Crossroads, it's your prerogative. At least you took Logan with you in case a fight broke out." He stopped, at a loss for words.

Jean spoke. "I'm sorry for all the stuff we said to Logan and Remy about that night. I'm sorry I treated you like a child. I guess…I didn't see you as an adult, I still saw you as a child. And I'm afraid we hurt your feelings. I'm sorry, Jubilee."

Jubilee remained facing the mirror, but Jean and Scott both saw the stiffness of her back relax slightly. "At least you apologized," she said tartly. "Now tell me something; what did you say to Logan to make him ditch me and leave me like that?"

Scott ran a hand through his hair, managing to look sheepish even under his glasses. "I told him if he had any sense he'd let you go to find someone else. I told him he didn't want to look into your eyes ten or twenty years from now and see regret there because you passed up the chance for a normal life because you thought you were in love with him."

Jubilee turned on him, and her cheeks were red with anger. "What the hell were you thinking when you said that?" she demanded, stepping up to him. "I told Logan the same thing I'm going to tell you; _I don't want normal._ I don't want a normal husband in a normal house with normal kids and a normal dog. If I wanted normal I would have accepted the first marriage proposal I got from that stupid popinjay I met at the Helsinki conference and moved to Rotterdam with him! I don't want normal, I want _Logan!_

"All I've ever wanted since I was fifteen was to join the X-Men and be one of you, really one of you. Not a tagalong that got in your way when you went out on missions, not a hindrance or someone who needed to be babysat, but really one of you. It was always 'Jubilee, stay here' or 'Jubilee, not this time you'll be hurt.' You know why I always ran off to follow Logan? Because he never brushed me aside, he never treated me like I was in the way, he never brushed me off. He treated me as an equal, as an adult. And in his way, he needed me too."

She took a deep breath, tried to calm down as she put on her jewelry. "I love him. I love him more than anyone I've ever known. He tried to tell me that I didn't want a life as one of the X-Men; he tried to tell me I wasn't cut out for this kind of life, that I deserved more. And I told him that if I die tomorrow as an X-Man, I'd die not regretting a single thing. Anything could happen to any one of us at any time. We're not infallible, we're…well, most of anyway…aren't immortal. I know a lot of the other women he's loved have died, and that tears him up, thinking I might become one of them. 

"But at least I'll have had him for however much time we both have, and at least I know the dangers; I'm accepting them with my eyes wide open. If I can accept them, then I can accept the dangers and trials and pains of being an X-Man. And I'm not exactly helpless. I can defend myself, I can handle myself, but having him next to me will even the odds. Whether I'm with him or not, I'm still going to be in danger, so I might as well have a bodyguard, huh?" she slipped her last earring in place, and turned to them, her eyes serious but no longer angry. "He sent me an Email this morning saying he's on his way home, and we have to talk. I agree; and I don't want anyone putting their two cents in while we do, or even after we do." She adjusted her jacket and turned, looking at all angles of her dress in the mirror. "Now. Jean, how do I look?"

Jean hugged her. "You look beautiful. They'll kick you out of the chapel for being more beautiful than the bride," she said. "Now, if I'm not mistaken, a certain Cajun is waiting for you out in the garage, so you'd better hurry." 

Jubilee kissed Jean quickly, and said. "I'm sorry for the cold shoulder. I was just so angry…"

Scott patted her shoulder. "We're sorry for getting involved where we shouldn't. I hope you and Logan patch things up, because I can't stand another few weeks like the ones we've just gone through." 

Jubilee smiled at him and grinned, then whisked off down the stairs and out the door to the garage.

***

Remy saw Jubilee coming, and readied his camera. As soon as she stepped into the brightly lit garage, he whipped it out, yelled, "Smile, p'tite!" and clicked the button. He lowered the camera to see her laughing face. "For Logan," he said, grinning rakishly. "He gon' be sorry he miss dis. You look beautiful, chere."

"Thanks, Remy," she grinned as she slipped into the front seat of the car. "Wow. How'd you manage to talk Charles into letting us take the Mercedes?"

Remy grinned as he slid into the driver's seat. "Remy t'ought de p'tite should impress her colleagues wit' a flashy entrance," he said.

As they started the drive upstate, Jubilee remembered something she'd forgotten in all the fuss and hubbub. "So how was your date with Elise?"

Remy grinned wider. "It was great," he said. "Remy took de ticket she give me an' wen' to de ballet. Jubilee, she de mos' beautiful dancer I've seen. She keep sayin' she was only a member of de corps de ballet, but she was de bes' one dere. I wonder why dey don' give her a bigger role."

"Was she the best one because you've got a thing for her, or do you have a thing for her because you think she's the best one?" Jubilee teased him, and laughed as he hemmed and tried to find excuses.

They stopped halfway there for them both to stretch their legs and fill up on gas, and Remy ran into the gas station and came out with two bottles of soda. Jubilee drank, looked at the lip of the bottle, and grimaced. "Shouldn't have put lipstick on until I got there," she said glumly.

Remy laughed at her vanity and they kept driving.

She was awfully glad when they arrived at their destination at almost five o'clock. She had called the Professor a few days before, and he had told her to come a little early. There would be refreshments served first, then they would walk to the church, which was conveniently located right across the road, then there would be a short walk back. 

Jubilee was impressed with the sight of the 'vacation house' when the Mercedes pulled up. It was an impressive two-story affair, not nearly as big as the Professor's mansion, but still with fair-sized rooms. She entered, and smiling butler waited to take her coat. She handed it to him, inquired her way to the bathroom, and quickly touched up her makeup and refreshed herself before venturing out again.

Remy met her in the foyer, and were greeted by Professor Cohen and Claudia. Jubilee made kissing motions in her direction as the two men laughed. "Oh, Jubilee, I'm so glad you could make it," Claudia said. "Can you do me a favor? Keep Matthew occupied while I get dressed? It's supposed to be bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the ceremony, and I don't want to jinx the whole thing!"

Jubilee laughingly agreed, and Claudia bustled off. Professor Cohen was distracted just then by another group of guests arriving, so she took Remy's arm and they wandered off to the large living room, where he snagged two glasses of champagne and handed her one as he sipped the other. Jubilee shook her head as his eye was caught almost immediately by a pretty blonde and he changed his course to intercept hers. As she sat on an easy chair and sipped her glass, Professor Cohen came up behind her. "Shouldn't you go catch your man?" he asked her.

Jubilee giggled. "He's not my boyfriend, he's just a close friend," she said. " My 'young man' as you call him, couldn't make it today, so I brought him instead."

"Quite the life of the party, isn't he," Professor Cohen chuckled. Remy was now surrounded by no less than four giggling young girls, and flirting as hard as he could with all of them. "So how have you been doing, my dear?"

Jubilee smiled. "Doing okay," she said. "I just published my new paper in _Physics Today._ Have you gotten a chance to read it yet?"

"I'm afraid not," he said. "With all the fuss made about the wedding, all the preparing and everything, I didn't have a chance. I'll certainly check after all the fuss dies down, though. What was it called, and which issue of the journal did you publish it in?"

They were deeply engrossed in their conversation when a woman appeared at the top of the stairs. "The bride is now ready, and the ceremony will begin momentarily," she said. "Will all guests please begin to move out to the church?"

Jubilee made a move to collect her coat, but decided against it, as the church was right across the street, and simply pulled her red scarf around her shoulders and walked with Remy to the church.

The ceremony was simple but sweet, and Jubilee joined in the applause and congratulations as the newly-married couple ran from the church and led the bridal procession back across the street. By then, it was getting dark, and the early October chill was setting in. She was glad, then, when they all walked back into the welcome warmth of the house. Most of the guests headed immediately for the buffet table, which was spread with a feast of delicious-smelling food. Remy was drawn away almost immediately again by the giggly blonde, and Jubilee waited until she saw that the crowd by the tables had dissipated before she went over.

She picked up a plate and looked down the table. She chose a helping of a delicious-looking chicken and rice dish, then a couple of slices of a juicy, pink-centered roast, some salad with a zesty Italian dressing, and a buttered roll, and went to find a seat. Everything seemed to be taken, and the only one she could see was a low ottoman in front of the open back door. She shrugged. The heat in here was stifling, anyway. She sat down and bit into her roll.

She was hungrier than she realized, and the food on her plate disappeared with startling rapidity. She was about to get up and go for a refill when the screen exploded inward and a familiar snarling, feral looking behemoth crouched just inside the room.

Sabretooth!

Jubilee dropped her plate, barely heard it shatter on the floor as guests began running and screaming. He wasn't looking at them however; he was looking right at her. "It's da runt's li'l firecracker," he said, grinning unpleasantly. "I smelled ya when you an' da Cajun boy pulled up. Yer all grown up now, ain'tcha?" He advanced on her. "So where's da runt? I don't smell him. If you're here by yerself, maybe I ought ta keep an eye on ya till he shows up, huh?"

Jubilee tensed. "Stay away from me," she said, backing up warily. Her eyes began to sparkle with the buildup of energy inside her preparatory to using her power. "Get lost, Sabretooth." She felt, more than heard, the frightened huddle of wedding guests in the doorway behind her. Where was Remy? She vaguely remembered seeing him wandering off into the other room with one of the giggling girls, but she couldn't see him now, and she couldn't spare the attention to find him. Her senses were focused on the man before her.

Sabretooth made a grab for her, and she gave up trying to avoid using her power. She had to protect these people; she couldn't worry about her cover. Her hands began to glitter with the multicolored pyrotechnics of her power.

"Give it up, girlie," Sabretooth snapped, making another grab for her. She danced aside, then opened her palms and let loose a stream of colored atoms that exploded on impact with his body, knocking him back out into the patio.

He lunged for her, snarling, and she sent another stream of atomic energy toward him as she backed away. Her heel caught on the edge of her gown, and she tripped and fell backward.

Sabretooth was on her now, and she was fighting him with everything she had. When she had gone off to college, Logan had taken her aside and showed her how to fend off an attack by a heavier, larger male in case she went to the wrong party. She'd never had the chance to use it then, but she thanked him in her head silently now as she bit Sabretooth's arm and gouged a chunk out with her nails. Her flailing hands raked his face, causing him to howl with pain. His claws came out, and swiped her almost casually across her cheek, and she cried out as three slashes opened up under her cheekbone. One went all the way across the bridge of her nose, and two more gashes marked the side of her neck. He grabbed her throat, jerked her head up to his, and smashed her pale forehead into his. She went momentarily limp, dazed from the impact of her head on his skull, and that was enough.

He whipped a slender band of metal from the pocket of his heavy jacket, and snapped it around her neck. Jubilee remembered the thing; it was one of those blasted collars that somehow suppressed her powers. She felt cut off from them, suddenly, and it was disorienting. Well, she might not have her powers, but she could still try to fight him until Remy could reach her through the thick crowd of people clustered in the door. She could already hear his voice; she just had to delay Sabretooth until Remy could reach her.

Her knee came up, hard, between his, and Sabretooth howled. Jubilee grinned grimly to herself and bashed her fist into his face, breaking his nose. Her next move was to bring her hand up, and she dug her knuckles into his eyes. He howled again, and slapped her with one massive hand. She saw stars as her head smacked the floor.

Remy pushed his way past the final knot of onlookers, Professor Cohen right behind him, and his heart almost stopped as he saw Sabretooth on top of Jubilee on the floor. She was fighting him, and apparently hurting him badly, judging by the howls of pain and outrage. He wondered for a moment why she wasn't using her power, then saw the narrow band of power-suppressing metal fastened about her neck. "Sabretooth!" he shouted, distracting the feral mutant from the girl on the floor, "Pick on somebody your own size, _homme_!" He seized the deck of cards he'd dropped into his suit pocket on a whim that morning and charged one up, flinging it at Sabretooth.

The blast! when it struck caught Sabretooth and flung him clear of Jubilee. She scrambled to her feet, tried to run. Sabretooth roared, flung himself at her in a flying tackle slightly reminiscent of a football defensive lineman, and Remy heard the sound of ripping cloth and Jubilee's scream. Sabretooth had caught her legs under the dress, and by some unlucky chance had deeply gashed her thigh. She screamed, went down, and he was on her in a minute, catching her up in his arms and throwing her over his shoulder. Then he was gone, loping off into the night, carrying Jubilee.


	10. Chase

Chapter 10: Chase

Professor Cohen bustled up as Remy stared stupidly at the empty room and smashed furniture. He ran to the door and looked out. Through the moonless, starless, cloudy night, he could dimly make out the shapes of trees quite close to the back porch. He turned to the host. "What's out there?"

"Forest," the man answered. "And a bit beyond that, the Canadian border. Unless you're a very experienced hunter or tracker, you won't find her and that man out there." He looked at Remy speculatively, then said, "Come on." He barely stopped at the door to drop a quick word to his new wife, then went on swiftly to a small den, where there was a phone. "Call your friends. Tell them she's in trouble. I figure her lover should be here soon enough."

Remy gaped at him. The man rolled his eyes. "You and Dr. Lee are both X-Men, aren't you?" he said. Remy nodded dumbly. "I found a letter she'd written once to someone she cared about a lot, Logan, I think his name was. We were in a hotel for a conference, and she'd arrived late. There weren't any rooms left. She, Claudia, and I shared a room that night. She wrote a letter, went to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night with the worst nightmare I've ever seen anyone have. She was screaming and crying, and calling for someone named Logan because someone named Bastion was hurting her. I remembered reading something in the papers about a member of the X-Men being pulled from that madman's hideaway, and I figured that was Dr. Lee. I wasn't wrong, was I?" he finished quietly. "She was a prisoner of that madman, and he did torture her."

"Yes," Remy said, picking up the phone and dialing the mansion's number. "Do she know dat you know?"

"No," he said. "Dr. Lee is an intensely private person, especially about her past. And I figured if her nightmares were that bad, she must be suppressing them during the day. So I started making it a point to keep an eye out for her at the conferences we were both at, and making sure she had a room to herself. I was pretty sure she wouldn't want anyone else to know. I kept her secret, don't worry; and I know Claudia didn't tell anyone."

Remy was just getting impatient with the ringing when the ringing stopped and a quiet voice said, "Xavier residence."

"Jean!" Remy burst out in relief. "Jean, is Logan there?" 

"Yes, he came in about an hour ago. He's pretty beat up and exhausted. He went straight to bed. Should I wake him up? What's wrong?"

"Jean, listen. Sabretooth was hidin' out in de fores' up here. He saw Jubes, an' he crash de party an' grab her. Says he goin' to keep an eye on her till Logan come to fin' her."

"I'll tell him. We'll be there soon." The line went dead. Remy blinked and turned to Professor Cohen.

"There's supposed to be a snowstorm headed our way," the man looked worried. "Jubilation doesn't even have her coat. I hope she's not out there long."

Remy nodded grimly.

***

Jean slammed down the phone and pitched her mental 'voice' to carry to all the occupants of the mansion, asleep or awake. **Jubilee's in trouble! Scott, Logan, Ororo, out to the Blackbird, NOW!** Then, on a tight thread of communication, she told Xavier what had happened as she changed out of her pajamas and into her uniform. **Charles, Sabretooth crashed the party. Apparently he's been hiding out in the mountains, and he saw Jubilee and Remy drive up. He broke in, kidnapped her, and ran.**

**Oh my God.** Xavier's mental voice sounded stricken. Jean understood.

Of all the foes they'd ever faced, Sabretooth was one of the cruelest. He and Logan especially had a long history of blows traded, battles fought, and words exchanged. Jean remembered the last time Logan had gone up against Sabretooth. Sabretooth had lost that time, and had limped off to nurse his wounds. Apparently he'd healed, and was now looking for revenge. And what better way to get that revenge but by hurting the one person in the world Logan loved more than life?

She didn't even want to think about what Jubilee was going through at the moment. No doubt the girl was terrified. Jean finished dressing, grabbed the cold-weather thermal gear out of the closet where she and Scott stored it, and ran.

She met them in the Blackbird's hangar, and quickly briefed them as they boarded the plane. Logan clenched his fist. "I shoulda stayed! I shoulda gone wit' her ta this shindig! I coulda helped her…I coulda saved her!"

"Logan," Ororo said, laying a hand on his arm in an effort to calm him down. "You had no way of knowing this would happen. You cannot be around to protect her all the time. Do not worry about what you could or should have done. We must concentrate on finding her first."

***

Jubilee groaned as Sabretooth's shoulder dug into her middle again. "Let me down," she pleaded with him. "I'm going to be sick if you don't put me down!"

He dumped her unceremoniously onto the cold ground, and she groaned as her aching stomach muscles abruptly clenched. She squirmed as best she could over to the side of the trail they were following, and threw up, retching miserably. Sabretooth tapped his foot impatiently, waiting as her stomach heaved from the jolting she'd gotten on his shoulder. "Are you done?" he snarled, yanking on the end of the scarf that bound her hands behind her back.

Jubilee spat on the ground in his general direction, just far enough toward him that he would suspect that she was spitting at him, but not close enough to him that he would try to retaliate. "Wouldn't have thrown up if you hadn't thrown me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes," she muttered. "Now do you actually have a destination in mind, or were you going to just wander around in circles until Logan finds you and shreds you like he did the last time?"

Sabretooth growled and sprang at her, slapping her hard. She bit her lip and refused to flinch, refusing to cower in front of him as he apparently wanted her to. "Yah, I got a destination in mind," he snapped. "You gonna be stayin' out in da cold if'n yah don't stop pissin' me off, girlie."

"Go ahead," Jubilee challenged him. "Leave me out here, right now! I can find my way back. And when Logan gets a hold of you, he's gonna kick your furry little ass all the way to next week!"

WHAM! Jubilee found herself on her knees in the snow under a tree. Sabretooth leaned over her, so close his fetid breath made her nose wrinkle. "Lissen, frail," Sabretooth snarled. "Ain't no way da runt gonna be able ta take me down in a square fight. Never has been able to, never will pull da trick. So shet yer mouth and come on." He grabbed her shoulders and hauled her to her feet. "I ain't carryin' yer skinny li'l ass all da way up da mountain, no matter how good it looks. Ya got two feet, so ya walk!"

Jubilee bent her head into the biting wind and began to walk. She was shivering; her scarf was tied around her hands behind her, and her bare shoulders were turning just the faintest shade of blue. She clenched her teeth to stop them from chattering, and continued to follow him up the trail.

As they climbed, the weather got colder. Jubilee had to suppress a moan of despair as a heavy snow began to fall, covering the way they'd come with a blanket of white. In a matter of time she could see nothing behind her but a white wall of snow. How was Logan going to find her?

Sabretooth stopped under a pine tree with thick hanging boughs that blocked out most of the snow, and looked at the frail. She leaned against the tree, eyes closed, panting through her shivers. The once-beautiful gown was now tattered, sodden, and dirty. Tatters of the cloth clung to the sticky, bloody slashes on her right thigh, sending drops of blood down the leg and to the snow. Sabretooth sniffed. Yes, the trail of blood was hot, and Logan shouldn't have a problem finding them out here in the wilderness anytime in the next two days, even with a blanket of snow on the ground. He yanked at the binding on her wrists. "Git goin', frail," he grunted.

Jubilee followed him numbly, all her attention now focused on putting one foot in front of the other. The terrible cold was making her mind wander, and she'd stopped being able to feel her numb cold feet a while back there on the trail. Her hands didn't exist anymore, either. Her mind floated in and out, in a daze, and she was just barely conscious when they stumbled out of the woods into a clearing. A run-down, ramshackle log cabin sat in the center of it.

Sabretooth opened the door and ducked under the top of the doorframe, his massive bulk filling up the space and making the cabin feel suddenly much smaller than it was. Jubilee stumbled in over the threshold, and stood there swaying, until he pushed her down into a shakily-constructed chair and unwound the scarf from her wrists. He turned to pick up a coil of rope from the corner, and when he turned around, she was unconscious. He wound the rope across her chest, breasts, and ribs, bound her arms close to her upper body and pressing her back against the chair, then proceeded to light a fire in the stone fireplace and empty a can of stew into a battered pot. The pot was placed by the fire to heat, and he sat down on the nearby cot, ignoring the wood's protest at the weight on it, and waited for her to wake up. As he waited, he studied her.

It had been several years since he'd last seen the perky little girl Logan had taken under his wing. Looking at her now, Creed's mouth watered. She was a nice little morsel, temptingly pretty and seductively curvy. He wondered if she was with Logan; he could swear there was something about her that smelled of the runt, yet she'd been with the Cajun boy at the fancy party. Maybe he should show her what a real man was like when she woke, not like the little X-Boys Xavier took in…

***

Jean and Scott looked despairingly out of the French doors in the rear of the house, watching helplessly as the snow fell harder. Already Sabretooth and Jubilee's tracks were covered, and more snow whirled a few feet beyond the door, reducing visibility to nearly zero. Then they turned back to the center of the room, where Ororo and Remy were trying to talk some sense into Logan. Logan, ignoring their protests, was pulling on several layers of thermal clothing and donning protective gloves, mask, hat, and two jackets. "I ain't goin' through this with ya all," he said. "This kinda storm's called a whiteout, an' its common in Canada. We're gonna see an inch in the next ten minutes, and chances are, be snowbound by tomorrow mornin'. Won't even be able ta open the doors, the snow'll be drifted up high against them an' ya won't be able ta leave. Not ta mention how long its gonna take ta dig out the Blackbird. I ain't gonna trust Creed ta keep Jubes safe that long; my chances o' findin' her an' him're better if I leave now."

"Logan, it is suicide to go out there now," Ororo protested angrily, putting her hand on his arm. "You cannot possibly track anything through this snow; you will die if you try. What if something happens and you get lost, or don't make it home?"

"Then there's still you, Scott an' Jean, an' the Cajun to try," Logan said, shrugging into the straps of the backpack Jean had packed with medical supplies and non-perishable food items that Professor Cohen had kindly offered to him. "Don' try ta talk me outta it, 'Ro. I gotta find Jubes, or die tryin'. Ya guys don' understan' what she means ta me. Life, for me, ain't worth livin' if she ain't in it. I listened ta ya, Scott, an' I tol' her I din' love her cause she deserves better'n me. She says she don' want nothin' better, she wants me. No one's ever said that to me before. No one's ever said they love me like that. An knowin' that, ya think I'm gonna leave her up on that mountain with Sabretooth? I let her down once when she needed me; I ain't doin' that again." He stood, tested his balance with the pack on, and nodded. "He's a'ready hurt her. Look at the blood on the floor. I can follow her scent to wherever they're hid, an' fin' them b'fore y'all can. I'll see ya later." He opened the French doors and stepped out.

He took a deep lungful of the cold snowy air, and accustomed himself to the smells in the air, sifting through the smells in the air to find the scent he sought. Pine, maple, the smell of the snow itself, and a wildness that was the forest itself…ah. There it was. The hot, rank, irritating scent that was Sabretooth's, and then the smell of blood and jasmine; Jubilee's perfume and blood from her leg wound. His lip curled in a silent snarl. Sabretooth had obviously not bathed in a while; Logan could almost have followed him by smell alone. Poor Jubilee; that must offend her delicate sensibilities. She even got snippy with him whenever he returned from one of his sojourns.

He'd missed her picking at him about his unwashed clothes and odor when he'd gotten home that afternoon…no, Logan checked his watch; it was now almost four o'clock in the morning, so he had arrived actually about twelve hours ago. He'd been expecting to see Jubilee. So it was something of a shock when Jean had tapped hesitantly at his door and slipped in.

"Whatcha want, Red?" he'd growled as she closed his room door. "If ya wanna give me another one o'your lectures, ya can save it, 'cause I ain't listenin'. I listened ta you an' your precious Scott, an' ripped out Jubes's heart 'cause ya all said it was the right thing ta do. Then I went off an' did some thinkin'. An' I realized that it ain't about what y'all think is better for Jubes an' me; it matters what we want. I been watchin' ya since she came home. Ya'all are still treatin' her like the child she was, not the woman she's become. Ya all still don't see her as a woman. So until ya do, there ain't nothin' we can do but go on as we have an wait fer all ya ta come ta yer senses. No outta my way, I gotta go fin' her an' talk ta her, apologise fer all the stuff I said before I left."

Jean put her hand on his arm. "Wait, Logan. She's not here, she was invited to the wedding of two of her colleagues upstate, and Remy accompanied her up. I'm not here to lecture you. While you were gone, Scott and Ororo and I realized we shouldn't be telling either of you what to do. Jubilee didn't say a single word to me for most of the time you've been gone, and then this morning Scott and I provoked her. She told us she doesn't want another life, she doesn't want anyone…but you."

Logan stopped unpacking and regarded Jean warily. "What're ya sayin', Red?"

Jean sighed. "I'm trying to say I'm sorry. We're sorry. We were wrong to get mad at you that night. Jubilee isn't a child anymore, and we_ have _been treating her like one. We're sorry." She looked at him.

Logan sat down on the end of his bed heavily. He never could resist those big green eyes. He might not still carry a flame for Jean, but the memory was still there, and he was always a sucker for a pretty woman. "Aw, Red," he groaned. "Thanks for the apology, but it's probably too late, if she took the Cajun--" He stopped, because Jean was shaking her head. 

"There's nothing going on, Logan. Remy might wish there were, but there's no room in her heart for anyone but you. It's pure friendship only. And a desire to hold her together for you. She's been having the dreams again since you left; Remy tried to help her through them by being there for her. She might be grateful to him, but she loves you."

Logan shifted the backpack on his back, his eyes slitted against the driving snow and squinted at the path in front of him,. It had apparently been an old deer trail; Sabretooth had used it as the most direct means to get…wherever he was going. They had stopped here; Logan's nose wrinkled at the rank smell of vomit. He was pretty sure it wasn't Sabretooth's, so it had to be Jubilee's. What had Sabretooth done to her to make her throw up?

He continued to follow the trail.

***

Jubilee stirred in her chair. Her leg was killing her; she whimpered a bit from the pain. As she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Sabretooth, lying on a cot by the far wall, asleep. She bit her lip. There were ropes tying her to the chair; but the chair wasn't made sturdy, and if she could…

She started wiggling everything she could, trying to get free. The rough rope sawed into her skin, giving her ropeburn on her arms. She ignored the pain from that, the wound on her leg, and the slashes on her cheek, and was finally rewarded with a loosening of the rope across her upper arm. Maybe now she could get her arm out.

A shadow fell over her, and she gasped as a rough hand cupped her chin and forced her head up. "Thought I was asleep, didn't you?" Sabretooth snarled. "Yer more trouble than yer worth, girlie!" He untied her and grabbed her arm, shoved her down on the cot. "I'm gonna have ta teach ya a lesson!" He shed the jacket and thermal clothing he wore, and Jubilee's eyes narrowed in anger as she realized what he was trying to do. She was frozen in terror, but snapped out of it when she saw he was almost on top of her. She tried to push herself off the bed, but he grabbed her arm.

Jubilee yanked her arm out of his grasp and kicked at his knees hard. He howled as her heel caught the side of his kneecap and it cracked. "Damn frail!" he grabbed at her. She drilled a fist into his face, tried to gouge at his eyes again, but he saw it coming this time, and grabbed her fist before it could connect. He bent her fingers back, further and further, until Jubilee heard the joints pop and a spike of pain traveled up her arm. She screamed, cradled her hand in her other one, sobbing. He grabbed a handful of her hair and the rope and flung open the cabin door.

He dragged her out into the whiteness of the storm, feeling his way through the snow until he found the tree limb he'd pounded into the earth to hang his deer kills to skin and butcher them, and slammed her back to it. Holding her against the pole, he tied her to it, winding the ropes cruelly tight around her upper body. She panicked when he began to move off into the cabin. "You're not going to leave me out here!?"

"Sure," he grinned. "Unless ya agree ta share da bed wit' me." She made a face, and spat in his direction. "Never!"

"Suit yerself, frail. Ya ain't comin' in till ya agree ta give me what yah gone an' gave da runt." He turned an stalked off into the cabin. 

"Sabretooth! Please! You can't leave me out here—please! I'll freeze! Sabretooth, please! Creed!" but he just walked back into the fuzzy rectangle of light that was the cabin door and slammed it shut, leaving her alone out there in the cold.

She opened her eyes wide, trying to see anything in the whiteness, but there was nothing but whistling wind and swirling snow. She was already shivering uncontrollably; she'd lost one shoe in the cabin, and the skirt of her dress had been ripped away up to her knees by Creed on their way up to this desolate place. She sobbed. There was no way anyone, even Logan, would find her before she froze to death. Already the numbness was creeping upward from her feet and legs, and from her hands and wrists. Her head lolled, and she started to drift off into the comfortable fuzziness of hypothermia.


	11. Snowbound

Chapter 11: Snowbound

Logan sniffed the air. He smelled smoke. Another deep whiff, and the wind carried to him the smell of Sabretooth's cabin's fire. He smelled Sabretooth himself, but there was no smell of Jubilee. He growled low in his throat. "Creed, I swear, she better be alive an' kickin' when I get to ya, or I'm gonna shred ya like I been itchin' ta do," he swore to himself, and broke into a run toward the direction of the smells.

It took nearly three hours for him to trace the source of the smells. It was almost eleven in the morning by the time he spotted the cabin amid the drifts. He slowed to a crawl, skulking between the thinning trees at the edge of the clearing, using every ounce of the self- control he possessed to keep from cursing when he sank into soft snow up to his waist. The white storm had taken most of the night to blow itself out, and Logan had wondered, rather grimly, how he and Jubes were going to make it back. He had snowshoes, but she didn't. There was no way she was going to be able to get down the mountain without help.

He waited for a long time, looking for any sign of movement in the clearing. Nothing. He began to creep closer to the cabin.

He was only a few feet from what he presumed was a sapling without leaves when he stepped on something soft and yielding. He froze as he pulled his snowshoe out of the deep pile of snow and saw a scrap of crimson cloth. He fell to his knees, digging in the soft snow furiously, and soon uncovered a leg. His heart nearly stopped when he recognized a tiny half-moon scar on the smooth white skin; it was Jubilee!

The snow flew as he scrabbled in it, finding another leg, the rest of the red dress, then a bare arm crossed with rope, shoulder, a throat with a trace of dried blood on it, and finally Jubilee's face. He slid out a claw, severed the rope that held her to the post, and brushed the loose flakes from the blue lips. He nearly screamed in anguish; then, unbelievably, he saw the shallow rise and fall of her chest. She was still alive!

He yanked off his coat, unmindful of the cold wind, and draped it over her. He patted her face gently as he said coaxingly, "Jubilee. Jubilee, wake up. Jubes, it's Logan. Wake up, you're safe, I'm here."

The eyelids fluttered, and opened, stared unseeingly at him for a moment, then closed again. Logan felt her hand. It was cold, but not as cold as it would have been if this had been a regular snowstorm. The snow had piled up around her so fast that it formed an insulating layer around her body, hiding her in a 'den' of snow away from the cold winds. She might be suffering from the early stage of hypothermia, but she would be all right if he could get her into a warm place and thaw her frozen limbs out.

There was a growl from behind him, and Logan started to spin around. Before he could get upright, a heavy weight plowed into his back and sent him facefirst into the snow. He got up, wiping the snow from his face, and turned, to see Sabretooth sneering at him from where he stood between Jubilee and himself. "You're early, runt," Sabretooth growled, assuming a ready stance. "Wasn't espectin' ya ta come fer da frail till after da storm. What'd ya do, track 'er all night?"

Logan didn't answer, unwilling to waste his breath talking. He crouched, low to the snow, assuming the same ready position Sabretooth was holding, and watched the other's body language for clues to any impending attack. Sabretooth continued to taunt him.

"She growed up nice an' purty from da li'l firecracker ya used ta pal around with," Creed continued. "Nice curves she got now. Ya screwed her yet?"

Logan ground his teeth furiously. "Watch yer tongue, Creed, 'fore I rip it out fer ya," he snarled.

"Aw, I hit a nerve," he said. "Maybe when I'm done with ya I'll leave ya alive long enough ta let yah watch while I screw yer girl," he said, never taking his eyes of Logan. "I tried ta show 'er she'd be better off wit' me than with you, but she didn't wanna cooperate, so I left her out here ta teach 'er a lesson. She'd have ta warm my bed fer me if she wanted ta come in out o' da cold. She chose not to." He shrugged. "Wouldn't'a been my fault if she froze ta death out here. What's da difference, screwin' me or you? I wonder if she was screwin' da Cajun too? Looks like she gets aroun' a bit, runt."

"If you're trying ta make me angry with Gumbo, Creed, ya wastin' yer breath," Logan growled in anger. "Jubes ain't the kin' ta 'get around'. She wit' me, she always gon' be wit' me. An' you flashin' yer li'l twig at her ain't goin' ta change her mind."

Creed roared in fury and sprang at Logan. Logan ducked, spun around, and took up position where Creed had stood just moments before. Now he was between Creed and Jubilee; he would die before Creed would touch her again. He wasn't going to move away from her. He sneaked a peek at the still form behind him; hoped she would be okay until he'd gotten rid of Sabretooth and could get her inside. He sniffed. Though his nostrils were almost filled with the rank, fetid smell of Creed's unwashed body, there was enough clean air blowing under his nostrils to keep from gagging; and also to tell him there was another storm coming. Another white storm, if he read the signs right. He wondered how close to the Canadian border he was; this sure smelled like his old stomping ground.

Creed made another rush at him, then at the last moment, he veered aside and his claws slashed at Logan's bicep. His claws left five shallow parallel gashes on Logan's arm that stung even as it healed. Logan cursed himself for his lack of attention and he focused back on the fight in front of him. 

Sabretooth had seen the quick glance, and taken advantage of the fact. So. Logan did care for the girl. He could use that against Logan; he just needed to reach the girl first. He circled Logan warily, but the other man's guard was up, and he couldn't see an opening.

A chill wind ruffled Jubilee's hair, and she shivered. Her eyes opened. She lay still for a moment, cataloging her injuries. Her leg was mercifully numb; the slashes that Sabretooth had left on her thigh still bled sluggishly, and she had the feeling that when she finally did get warmed up it would hurt like hell, but for now it was numb. Something was missing; after a moment her cold-numbed mind identified it. The ropes didn't bind her arms anymore; she was free. She brought her cold, stiff arms up to her neck and yanked the narrow metal band from around her throat. Abruptly the stuffed-with-cotton feeling in her head went away, and she felt her powers returning to her. She kept her eyes closed, reached out to the air molecules around her and sped them up to warm herself up. She was just getting feeling back to her fingers when she heard a roar over the sound of the wind and something heavy landed over her legs.

Her eyes flew open, and saw Logan, lying over her, his shoulder blades digging into her calf. She gaped in disbelief; she didn't expect to see him here this soon! He smiled, gasped out, "Told ya…I'd always be here f'r ya…from now on…darlin'."

Euphoria surged through her. Logan was here, with her. Together they could take anything on, take any enemy out. She gave him a hand up as Sabretooth rushed at him, and Logan rolled out of the way just in time. 

Logan sprang up, snarling. Jubes was awake; she had her powers back; she could take care of herself from here. He turned to Sabretooth, a fierce light in his eyes. "Let's dance, Creed," he taunted.

Sabretooth snarled. The runt and the firecracker together he couldn't take on. Jubilee had hurt him earlier when he crashed the party; One eye was still not working properly. 

He lunged at Logan, but the smaller man slipped past him, quick as lightning, and slashed at his side in passing. Sabretooth howled in anger and pain as his blood stained the snow. Logan followed it up with a fast spring to the other side, slashed Sabretooth's other flank. Jubilee stepped off to the side, trying to get out of Logan's way to let him move.

Sabretooth snarled in anger and sidestepped Logan's next swipe quickly, hoping the other man wouldn't notice he was moving closer to the girl. Jubilee, concentrating on the battle in front of her, didn't see the danger she was in until Sabretooth grabbed her around the waist, pulled her close to him, and held one razor-sharp talon to her throat. "Not another step, runt," he snarled. "Or da frail gets an extra airhole."

Logan looked panicked, but he didn't see any other way to save her but to do as Sabretooth said. He lowered his claws, retracted them, and lowered his arms. "Let her go, Creed. This is b'tween me an' you. Leave her outta it."

Sabretooth tightened his grip on Jubilee's throat and shook his head. "Uh-uh, runt. She's important ta ya. That makes her important ta me, too."

"Really," Jubilee's eyes narrowed. Logan's eyes tried not to wander down to where her fingers were glowing; and with Sabretooth's position behind her, he couldn't see her blue eyes glowing as she built up her power. "Well, Logan's important to me, but you know, I really can't say the same for you. In fact, I could care less if you dropped dead." She whirled and grabbed the side of Sabretooth's head.

Inside his brain, the molecules of plasma that made up part of his blood began to speed up, pumping through his veins faster and faster. Logan stared in astonishment as the capillaries in his eyes swelled and burst. Sabretooth started screaming as the whites of his eyes turned red with the burst blood vessels, and he started to scream. The plasma heated up from the accelerated movement and began to heat his veins and arteries, and traveled through his body toward his heart. The blood that dripped from the gashes on Sabretooth's side started to steam as it hit the ground. 

"Jubilee!" Logan was shocked by the queer glitter in her eyes. Jubilee wasn't usually this bloodthirsty; and she'd never killed before. But she looked perfectly capable of doing it now, as she watched Sabretooth writhe under her hands, screaming as she boiled the blood in his veins. She didn't take her eyes or her hands off him as he crumpled to the snow in front of her, screaming silenced. Logan was alarmed when she didn't let go. "Jubilee!"

Her eyes were glowing, a deep sapphire glitter that scared him. The outlines of her body glowed with the same light, as if her power were consuming her. There was no soul or reason looking out of her eyes, just pure, soulless power. He had never seen anything like this before; it was reminiscent of his own berserker rage, done with Jubilee's power.

He grabbed her wrists, being careful not to touch her skin; he didn't want the blood boiled in his veins, thank you. After some pulling, which got more frantic as the wind picked up and he saw a wall of white snow heading for them, he got her to drop Sabretooth's body. They ran for the cabin just as a wall of white swallowed the cabin and Sabretooth up in a white blur.

Logan slammed the door and bolted it against the howling wind, gave a sigh of relief, and turned to Jubilee. She had collapsed on the floor as soon as they'd gotten in. Now, as he leaned over her and looked into her eyes, the eerie blue glow faded, and the young woman he knew and loved returned. "Jubilee?" he said cautiously, holding out a hand. She reached out, took it, and he helped her limp over to the cot. "Sit down," he directed her. "I dropped a backpack full o' supplies back by the trees. Don' worry," he said as he saw the alarmed look she was giving him, "I won't go far. An' after what ya did ta Sabretooth, I don' think he's going ta be any bother ta us." He left, closing the door carefully, and headed for the backpack.

Where Sabretooth had been lying in the snow there was now only a shallow depression that was rapidly filling with snow. Logan shook his head and kept heading for the backpack. As soon as he hit the treeline, he bent and scraped about in the snow for the backpack. His questing hands snagged on the strap, and he pulled it out of the snow. He retraced his steps back to the cabin, got inside, and closed the door.

Jubilee was sitting on the cot, inspecting the gashes on her thigh critically in the dim light from the dying fire. Logan dropped another log on the fire, waited until it was a right, steady flame, then shed the outer clothes he wore and removed the thermal clothing he wore. Now dressed more comfortably in jeans and a flannel shirt, he crouched on the floor and gently moved Jubilee's hands, inspecting the wounds. He pulled the backpack over, opened it, and took out a pad of gauze presoaked with antiseptic. He began to wipe down the wounds gently as she said, "Logan…I'm sorry."

"Sorry f'r what, darlin'?" he said.

"For what happened out there." She was silent for a minute, then said, "I just…I got so angry…Logan, he tried to rape me. He had me on this cot…and I suddenly remembered Bastion…and I would have killed him right there, if I'd had my powers. Logan, I've never gotten that angry before...I think I even scared myself."

Logan started wrapping a bandage around her leg as she went on. "I can't believe I killed him…Logan, what a horrible way to die, even for someone like him."

He finished with her leg, picked up the backpack, and sat down on the cot beside her, pushing her hair off her neck and checking the cuts on her neck. They were superficial, but he figured he'd better clean them anyway. She rattled on, and he let her talk herself out, figuring it was mostly shock. She'd been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours.

He cleaned the cuts on her face, carefully cleaning the cut across the bridge of her nose. It was barely more than a scratch, and he figured she wouldn't scar. When he was done, he pushed the backpack off the cot and pulled her back against him for a moment, holding her as she lapsed into silence. "Ya didn't, darlin'," he said finally.

She twisted to face him. "What?"

"Ya didn't kill him," Logan said. "When I went out ta get the pack, he wasn't there. Probably limped off somewhere ta lick his wounds like the dog he is." He kissed the bare shoulder, feeling the flesh warming under his lips. She was still cold, but at least she wasn't dying of hypothermia. "Y'know," he said, letting his hand wander down to the tiny dress zipper behind her back, "Ya'd probably be a bit more comf'rtable if ya got outta this dress."

Jubilee giggled a bit, and it was a sweet, wonderful sound for him. "I don't have anything else," she said.

"From where I'm sittin' I don't see where that's a problem," he teased her gently, trying to cheer her up. She giggled again, and he took that as permission to start pulling that zipper down. "I'm sorry I missed seein' ya in it," he said as he slid the wet rags off her chest. She stood up and he slid it off her body the rest of the way. She stepped out of it and kicked it aside, then sat down again. He unhooked the black strapless bra, and tossed it aside as he touched a small bruise on the curve of one breast. "Did he do that ta ya?" he asked, his voice soft.

Jubilee looked at the bruise, startled. "I don't even know how I got that," she said, touching it gingerly. "Didn't know that was there until now." Logan drew in a breath, his blood racing through his veins. He shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but…he dipped his head, kissed that tiny bruise, and kissed his way across the soft skin, listening to her soft moans, set at the same pitch as the wind outside. After a while, he heard nothing but her voice, as her cries eclipsed the howling of the wind.

***

They lay much later on the cot, listening to the wind. Logan got up to put another log on the fire, and as he waited for it to catch fire, he looked at the young woman lying there asleep. He'd found a long time ago that physical intimacy was a good stress reliever; from the look on her face, Jubilee had just discovered that too. She was dressed in her lace panties and one of his flannel shirts; though they were about the same height, she was a bit slimmer, and the tail of the shirt just covered her backside. She looked so desirable lying there dressed in his clothes. He wanted to wake her up and listen to her say his name in that soft whisper he only heard from her in bed…but he busied himself instead opening a can of soup that Professor Cohen had slipped into the pack and heating it up by the fire. It was warm and he was just contemplating waking her up when her eyes opened of their own accord.

"Smells good," and she stretched, lazily, like a cat. Logan swallowed hard as she got up and came over to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her body against his. "I'm starving."

"I'm hungry too," he said, searching the cupboards for the china and taking out two cracked bowls. He filled both with the soup and watched as she sat back down on the cot (there were no tables or chairs here) and tucked her legs under her as she ate. "So where did you go?" she asked finally.

"Went ta my ol' stompin' ground up yonder," he said, pointing at the north wall of the cabin. "Hadda do some thinkin'. Jubes, I'm sorry f'r what I said before I left. Yer an adult, ya got a right ta make up yer own mind 'bout who ya want in yer bed, an' if ya want me as much as I want ya, there ain't no point in me makin' both o' us miserable by denyin' that I love ya, too. It was Scott who said somethin' that made me think; he said--"

"I know what he said," Jubilee pushed a piece of meat around in her bowl with her spoon. "Jean and Scott both apologized before I left for Professor Cohen's with Remy." She put her spoon down and looekd him in the eye. "And before you ask…no. Remy is my friend, as he is yours as well. There was nothing going on between us. He did spend a few nights in my room, helping chase the dreams away when you left, and he did offer to escort me to the wedding, but it was as a friend only." She grinned suddenly, the wide grin he'd last seen right after the bar fight at Crossroads. "In fact, he's got a new girlfriend; flirted a bit with the salesgirl who helped me find the shoes to go with my poor dress, and got a date with her. Get this, Logan; she's a ballerina. Can you see Remy squirming through an entire ballet just so he can see her?" she chuckled. "She's got to be something else if he's going to such lengths to see her."

Logan chuckled as he finished his soup. He had a hard time imagining the Cajun at a ballet, but he would do almost anything for a pretty girl…

Jubilee dropped her spoon into the empty bowl and grinned as she put it in a wooden bucket with some of Sabretooth's other dirty dishes. "Right, then. Enough talk. I missed you so much, Logan, you wouldn't _believe_…" her words trailed off, and she proceeded to show him just how much she'd missed him.

***

Sabretooth growled as he smelled the wind and heard the faint sounds coming from the cabin. His fists clenched. The little slut, taking Logan over him! And that trick she pulled with her power…apparently, in the years since he'd last scrapped with both of them, she'd learned a few things. His body still shivered with the memory of the pain he'd felt as the heated blood poured into and through his heart. He'd have to be careful with her…but the thought of her spirit fanned his desire to take her and break her, and he was determined to do just that…once he'd figured out how.

He approached the cabin from the windward side, taking care not to let his scent carry to the man inside the cabin, and spent some minutes walking around, packing the snow down. He finally stood back, grimly satisfied, and an unpleasant smirk crossed his face. There. They'd see that, and know he still wanted her…and what Creed wanted, he tried his damnedest best to get. He ran off into the forest.

Behind him, trampled into the fresh snow, lay the words, _We ain't done yet!_


	12. Rescue

Chapter 12: Rescue

Logan looked around at the scenery as he filled the battered cooking pot with snow to melt for water. Unbroken white. Nothing but pure unbroken white. He sighed.

He and Jubilee had been stuck here at the cabin for two days now, and food was running low. They'd woken that morning wondering if they should try to find their own way back to Professor Cohen's residence…or anywhere where there was running water for a hot bath and decent food. They'd been eating nothing but canned goods, broken occasionally by the power bars that Cohen had tucked in the pack. He had been reluctant to leave before, mostly on Jubilee's account. She had no shoes, no heavy clothes. And as appealing as it was seeing her dressed in his clothes, and laughing as his jeans threatened to slide off her slender hips, she couldn't wear his clothes off the mountain.

"Why not?" she'd argued with him that morning. He'd explained to her, patiently, that the moment she tried to walk anywhere, they'd fall off. He might like seeing her bare skin, but it wasn't going to feel so good when the cold air hit her. It wasn't an insurmountable problem (she'd suggested tying the jeans around her waist with the remnants of the rope) but the problem about shoes was. So he sighed, and put off their leaving for another day.

Not that he was really anxious to get back. He had grown to like this log cabin. If you could ignore the lack of running water and the constant woodsmoke smell in the cabin, it was quite cozy. The nights were cold, but in each other's arms it was quite warm enough. And it was wonderful waking up beside her every morning.

But it was hard, not having running water or heat, and food was running low. One of the cuts on her leg was swelling slightly, and she'd begun limping. He was worried that it might have contracted an infection, and wanted to get her to Hank and have her leg looked at.

Scott and Jean were the reason he was upset. If they hadn't interfered, he wouldn't have run off, and Jubilee would have had him by her side when she'd gone to the wedding, not the Cajun. Remy was all right, but he didn't have a personal interest in seeing that Jubes didn't get hurt. And the fact that Jubilee had nearly been violated again made him angry. 

He returned to the cabin, having to wade through chest-high drifts to do so. Jubilee had cleared a path for him by melting the snow in several directions from the cabin's door, but with the wind still blowing as furiously as it was, the snow piled into the cleared places as fast as she could clear it. She'd given up eventually.

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Jubilee was lying on the cot, staring into the flames dancing in the fireplace. "So, Logan," she said, "Where'd you go when you left?"

He set the pot on the edge of the hearth and joined her on the cot, sliding in behind her and wrapping his cold limbs around her warm body. She turned to him, pulled the blanket they'd been sleeping under over them both, and curled her warm feet around his cold ones. "I went ta Canada," he confessed. "Spent a few days campin' out in the woods doin' some thinkin', then hit some o' the roadside bar-and-inn places I usually visit when I'm out there on my own. Got inta a few fights, too." He grinned wolfishly as he remembered one. "At one o' them, there was this guy tryin' ta cut in on a lady an' her man. Started a bar fight by tryin' ta punch the lights outta the other guy. Poor sap didn't really know how ta fight; he was gettin' pounded but good when I stepped in. Poor gal looked like she was goin' ta faint when she saw my claws!" 

Jubilee giggled, and he snuggled closer to the warm body, putting his cold hands on her breasts. She shivered, but placed her own hands over top of his to warm them. "Go on," she urged him when he didn't continue, "What happened?"

He sighed. "Hadda beat on the guy a bit before he got the message. When he finally left, the couple thanked me. Said they appreciated my help. 

"The woman told me I'd make some lucky girl a happy woman. She said if I took care'a my woman half as good as I took care of a coupla total strangers, then any girl'd be lucky ta have me. It made me think o' you, Jubes. You don't really need takin' care of; ya proved that back at Crossroads. Come ta think o' it, the only reason that jackass was able ta take ya down was 'cause ya were watchin' me. Don't ever let yerself git distracted in the middle o' a fight, Jubes, no matter what's happenin' 'round ya. I can take care o' myself." He kissed her gently, then said, "Now answer a question f'r me. What happened at the party, an' why'd Creed git so pissed at ya?"

Jubilee laughed. "I broke his nose," she said, "And I kneed him, bit his arm, and blew him through a door with my pafs. He wasn't really pleased at being held off." She grinned. "I forgot to thank you, by the way."

"Me? F'r what?" It was hard to concentrate on the conversation with her wiggling against him like that.

"It was before I left for college. You took me into the Danger Room and showed me how to fend off an attack by a larger, heavier opponent. Came in handy with Sabretooth, both during that fight, and after, when we were here and he was trying to get me into bed with him. He put that damn collar around my neck in the middle of the fight at Professor Cohen's, but he forgot to lock it, that's how I got it off later when you and he were fighting. Thank goodness."

Logan chuckled, and shifted so he lay on top of her. "There's my Jubes," he said, kissing her. She wiggled around in his arms until she could press herself against his body, and all thoughts of talk fled out the window as their lips met.

Logan woke slowly, his nose filled with the smell of smoke. He coughed, and that started off a fit of coughing as he tried to draw breath in the smoke-filled room. "Jubilee!" he yelled, shaking her. She didn't wake. He sprang off the bed, rushed to the fireplace. In between the wreaths of smoke, he saw that a log had rolled off the fire, knocked up against the pot, and been deflected off the hearth onto the floor, which was made of wood. The floor had caught fire, followed shortly by the wall. Flames were now creeping up the side of the cabin. It was hopeless; he couldn't save anything. He returned to the cot, stuffed his legs into his pants and his feet into his boots, then grabbed Jubilee, pulled one of his shirts over her head and yanked a pair of his pants over her legs. That was all he had time for. He scooped her up in his arms and stumbled out of the cabin, half-blinded by smoke and choking on it as well. He carried her out to just before the treeline and watched, stunned, as the cabin burned before his eyes. What the hell was he going to do now?

***

It was getting dark. Scott sighed as he swung the Blackbird around in a circle and headed back the way he'd come. Beside him, in the co-pilot's seat, Ororo looked anxiously at him. "Can we not just look once more, Scott?" she said wistfully.

Scott hesitated. "'Ro, it's getting dark," he said. "We're not going to be able to see anything at all in a few moments." He stared at the darkening forest below them, feeling responsibility settle on his shoulders like a lead weight. 

It was part of being a leader, he knew; especially of a team like the X-Men. Losing members was nothing new; he felt the loss of any member personally. But losing Logan and Jubilee…he grimly banked and swung over a new section of the search grid he and Charles had mapped out for the huge trackless forest, and turned the searchlight back on. Logan could piss him off sometimes, and he knew he got on Logan's nerves as well, but he had the same responsibility for his well-being that he had for every other member of the team. Including Jubilee. He was more worried about her than he was for Logan. Logan could take care of himself, as he'd proved time and time again, but Jubilee was still a little rusty from her time away from the X-Men, and he wasn't sure how well she would handle Sabretooth. Creed could be vicious and brutal; and Scott didn't want to see either of them in his clutches.

"Scott," Storm said suddenly, peering out of the window with binoculars, "Head in that direction." She pointed off to her right. "And turn the searchlight off."

"Did you see something?" Scott turned the Blackbird's nose in the direction Ororo indicated, and switched off the searchlight. They flew in silence and darkness for a while, as Storm kept the binoculars trained on whatever she was staring at. Jean closed her eyes, reaching out with her already-strained powers, trying to pick up their psychic signatures. Suddenly she gasped, and her eyes flew open. "Scott!" she cried. "It's them!"

Ororo pointed down below them, and now Scott could see the bright orange glow of a huge fire. Jean was already opening the lower loading door as he brought the sleek black aircraft into a hover position just above the tiny clearing. Then she reached out with her telekinesis and brought up their two missing members.

Logan clung tightly to Jubilee's unconscious body, keeping himself as still as possible so Jean wouldn't have too much of a problem pulling them aboard. There was nowhere for the Blackbird to land out here; Jean's telekinetic grasp was all that stood between them and a night out in the cold. He gave a huge sigh as his feet touched the floor and the loading hatch closed.

Ororo bustled up holding two thick fleece blankets. Logan barely noticed when she draped one over his shoulders; he was watching Jean wrap Jubilee in the other one and check the younger woman's breathing. "Is she all right?" he asked her.

Jean nodded, reaching into the medkit Ororo came up to them with and taking out an oxygen mask. She fitted that over Jubilee's face, turned the oxygen on, and telekinetically lifted her onto one of the seats as Scott directed the Blackbird back toward home. "She just got a lungful of smoke," she said. Logan pushed the hem of the T-shirt up and said, "Can ya have a look at that, Jean? Creed raked her leg with his claws back at her friend's house, an' I tried ta clean it up but it kinda don't look so good right now." Jean leaned in over the cuts, inspected them. Three of them didn't look bad, but the last two were definitely infected. 'We're on our way back to the mansion," she said, covering Jubilee with the blanket again, "And Hank can look at it there."

When they got close to the mansion, Jean reached out telepathically and spoke to Xavier. **Charles, we found them! They're both alive! Jubilee's suffering from smoke inhalation, and she's got a couple of infected cuts on her leg from Sabretooth's claws, but she's otherwise fine!**

Xavier sounded relieved. **Thank God, I was so worried! Shall I have Hank meet you in the hangar?**

**Yes, that'd be great.** Jean sounded relieved.

Sure enough, as the Blackbird landed in its hangar, Hank was waiting for them, along with all the other X-Men, including Remy. Jubilee roused slightly as the plane touched down, and allowed Logan to carry her off and deposit her onto the bed Hank had with him. Jean helped him push it back down the halls to the medlab, where to her surprise, Remy was waiting for her. "Remy," she said, sitting up despite Jean's protests and giving him a hug. "Remy, I missed you…oh, jeez…" and she got misty-eyed as she hugged him. Remy hugged her back, feeling a surge of relief that she was all right. He'd had the wildest visions of what Sabretooth could be doing to both of them, and it was a relief to find that none of those terrible things had come true. He laid her down as Jean's protests became insistent, and went over to Logan. 

"T'ings wit' de p'tite be too excitin', _homme_," he growled at Logan as he punched the older man lightly in the arm. "You better not be rushin' off again any time soon, 'cause dis ol' Cajun can' take much more o' dis kinda excitement. De p'tite be too high maintenance f'r me." Logan grinned in response and they watched as Jean and Hank rolled the bed into the exam room. 

"No," Jean said when Logan tried to enter. "She's going to get some sleep and a thorough exam. You had better go and have a hot bath and some decent food." She shut the door in his face. He was left staring at the door, bemused.

"She was worried about Jubilee," Scott said quietly. "So was I. So was everybody. Logan, I'm sorry for what I said. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or hers."

Logan turned, looked at Scott thoughtfully. The X-Men's leader was being sincere; he'd really been concerned for Jubilee, and he was sorry for what he'd one. However, it didn't make up for the three weeks of heartache Logan and Jubilee had gone through.

Scott staggered as the fist came flying in from off to the side and slammed into his jaw. He blinked in surprise, his eyes watering from pain as he rubbed his aching jaw. "Hey, I said I was sorry," he protested.

Logan stepped up to him. "Ya hurt both o' our feelings and broke Jubes's heart, an' all ya got ta say is 'sorry?' Gonna tell ya somethin, Cyke, Jubes mighta f'rgiven ya, but I ain't. And I got a _long_ memory. Sorry don't usually cut it with me, but f'r her sake I'm gonna let it pass. Jus' don't do it again, Cyke, or Jubes or no, you an' I gonna get inta it." He turned and stalked away.

He sat back in the hot bath, relaxing, some time later, and thought about it all. Jubes wouldn't be really happy when she found out he'd smacked Scott's mug, but Scott had it comin' to him. Hopefully he'd take the hint and the word would spread, and everyone would leave him and Jubilee alone from now on.

He climbed out of the tub, toweled off, and dressed. As he was pulling his shirt over his head, there came a tap at his door. "Come in," he said.

Xavier glided in on his hoverchair, and Logan turned back to the mirror. "Lemme guess, this is 'bout me punchin' Scott out. Yer probably upset."

"Not at all," Xavier said mildly, and Logan turned, to see a smile hovering around the corners of Charles's lips. "I must admit, though, it was not quite the way I would have handled it. Before you arrived that night and then promptly left again to look for Jubilee, I was about to take Scott aside myself and suggest that he apologise for intruding where his advice was neither welcome nor wanted." 

Xavier sobered. "Scott is not perfect, Logan. He will make mistakes, especially where the X-Men are concerned. He takes being the leader of the X-Men quite seriously; maybe too seriously at times. His childhood was completely out of his control; he now tries to control too many things, and ends up annoying everyone. Privately, between you and I, some of the things he does makes me look askance at him too. But I try to stay out of it, because it isn't my place to interfere. You all need to make your own mistakes in order to grow as individuals." 

Logan sat down on the end of the bed and grinned. "Well, this is news," he said. "You an' Scott not agreein' on everything?"

"Just between us," Xavier said quickly. Logan nodded.

"So how is Jubilee?" Xavier said. "Jean and Hank are down in the lab with her; I figured if I wanted to find out what had happened, I would get faster answers from you."

Logan started to fill in the details of their three days up in the mountains together. "I swear I'm gonna kill Creed if he touches her again," he growled. "He left a note stomped inta the snow sayin' he wasn't done with us yet. She ain't leavin' my sight till we're done with him."

"Logan, be careful," Xavier warned him. "Jubilee has a lot of obligations, not all of them with the X-Men. You cannot watch her that closely without curtailing her freedom, or appearing to. She may not like that all that much."

Logan nodded. "I'll be careful."

Both men heard footsteps in the hall, and Jubilee suddenly appeared. She ran to hug Xavier, and kissed his cheek, then sat next to Logan on the bed. "Hank says I've got a little bit of an infection in my leg, and he wants to keep an eye on it, but otherwise I'm fine. So what are we all talking about?"

"From what Logan has told me of your encounter with Sabretooth, I believe you should be more careful for a while," Xavier said to her. "He is obviously bent on exacting revenge against Logan for the last time he was injured in a fight between the two of them, and now he will wish to avenge his defeat at your hands. Jubilee, be careful when you go somewhere, please?"

"Sure, Professor," she said. "Logan, have you got my jeans and my green sweatshirt in here somewhere? I couldn't find them in my room." Logan pointed at his bureau, and she began to rummage around in it. "Found them," she said at last. "I'm off to take a nice hot bath, then I'm going to find some dinner. Coming?"

Logan was about to demur when Xavier smiled. "I shall leave the two of you to your bath, then," he said. "It is good to have you both back. Welcome home!" He smiled broadly and vanished.

Jubilee leaned close to Logan's ear and whispered, "There's no one in the girls' bathroom right now, and no one using the hot tub. I can tell you had a bath already, but would you take another one with me?" 

Logan grinned into the blue eyes of the young woman in front of him, stood up, and led the way down the hall to the bathroom. How could he resist?


End file.
